


Trickster's Maze

by TwilightKnight17



Category: Persona 5, Persona Series
Genre: Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Persona 5 Protagonist Has A Palace, Persona 5: The Royal Spoilers, Shuake Big Bang 2020, all of Akira's unaddressed trauma, some particular headcanons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-13
Updated: 2020-08-26
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:14:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 35,768
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25834834
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TwilightKnight17/pseuds/TwilightKnight17
Summary: In the aftermath of a year from hell, Akira is fine. Yes, he's been separated from his friends, is home with his distant parents, and hasn't heard from the boy who promised to come back to him, but he's fine. Sure, he's sleeping more, and his friends don't text back much, but he's fine. He always knows what to do.Everything is fine.
Relationships: Akechi Goro/Kurusu Akira
Comments: 191
Kudos: 983
Collections: Shuake Big Bang 2020





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> My fic for the Shuake Big Bang 2020! This was my first time participating in an event like this, and working on it was a lot of fun. This got a lot longer than I intended, as usual.
> 
> A stealth-prequel to this fic was posted [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24629950), but it's not necessary to read it to understand what's happening.

_“I just… Couldn’t this be good enough…?”_

_Soft fingertips, still uncharacteristically bare, pressed gently to his lips. Prior, heated anger had cooled to something warm and strangely gentle. “You’re strong enough for this. Don’t hesitate now. We’ll make it through tomorrow, and when I come back to you, it will be of my own free will. Not as bait offered by a madman. I promise.”_

_“I’m sorry…”_

_“Don’t.” It was whispered against the corner of his mouth. “I didn’t realize what I was asking of you. Can you blame me? Your regard is certainly not something I deserve, or ever expected. And I’m the one who should be sorry, for hurting you again, but I told you. I would rather die than live as someone else’s pawn, hostage, or bargaining chip.”_

_“I know… That’s why I’ll fight. But...stay with me until then. Please. I don’t know how long it’ll be until I see you again.”_

_He could feel a smile against his cheek. “Relax. We have all night. I’m not going anywhere.”_

_Lips covered his, soothing and present. He pressed into the kiss, further, further, wanting to absorb the feeling, imprint the memory. Just in case. This moment, at least, was warm skin and careful touch and blessed, wonderful reality. For just a little longer._

* * *

Akira’s eyes fluttered open, and he stared at the ceiling, absently batting around his sheets until he found his buzzing phone and hit snooze on the alarm. As always, his dream didn’t make it to any of the really interesting parts, but he supposed he should be grateful, considering that Morgana was curled up on his stomach. That might be slightly awkward.

He was grateful for the warmth, though. It had been a lonely few months since he’d returned to his hometown. Morgana was one of the few comforts he had. Here, an hour and a half outside of Tokyo, everything felt like...nothing. What good was it to be the boy who had shot a god and saved the world, when everything around you was mundane and unaware?

“Morgana,” he murmured, nudging the cat gently. Morgana grumbled sleepily, but moved enough so that Akira could turn onto his side as he scrolled through his phone. No new group chat notifications, one email from the school reminding students that the deadline to sign up for the school trip was two weeks before summer break started, and a string of messages from Futaba from sometime overnight. He smiled and opened it up to see what she was up to.

> _[Futaba - 4:46am] I GOT IT I FIGURED IT OUT HOLY SHIT_
> 
> _[Futaba - 4:46am] I DONT KNOW WHY A PIECE OF CODE FOR THE MUSIC WAS MAKING THE CGS BUG OUT_
> 
> _[Futaba - 4:47am] BUT THEYRE NOT A GARBLED MESS ANYMORE_
> 
> _[Akira - 7:19am] That’s fantastic. I can’t wait to see how it looks with actual pictures instead of rainbow mess._
> 
> _[Akira - 7:19am] Did you get any sleep, or just work all night?_
> 
> _[Futaba - 7:21am] I slept! For like...2 hours, but I did._
> 
> _[Futaba - 7:22am] I’ll make it up tonight. I’ve got Dad’s coffee for today._
> 
> _[Futaba - 7:22am] What about you? Haven’t heard from you in like a week_
> 
> _[Akira - 7:23am] I’m fine. Same as always._
> 
> _[Akira - 7:24am] School. Homework. Teaching Morgana to play Ultra Phoenix Fighters so I can get the multiplayer trophies. The free update with the Featherman X characters should be out in a few days._
> 
> _[Futaba - 7:25am] If your internet wasn’t so slow I’d play online with you_
> 
> _[Futaba - 7:25am] Ugh, gotta go get ready for school_
> 
> _[Akira - 7:26am] It’s okay. I should too._

Contrary to his words, he stayed in bed another few minutes until his alarm went off again, then reluctantly sat up. Morgana was awake now; he yawned, and asked, “Are we having breakfast now?”

“Yeah.” He scooped up Morgana, draped him over his shoulder, and made his way downstairs. His parents were gone already; they left early for their jobs, but they always made sure he had something for breakfast. This morning, it was a pot of miso soup left to warm on the stove, and Akira served himself a portion and got a piece of salmon from the fridge for Morgana.

“Isn’t your math test today?” Morgana hopped from Akira’s shoulder to the counter, where he was absolutely not allowed when Akira’s parents were home. “You need to eat more than just soup. A good breakfast is important!”

“The soup is fine. I’m not that hungry.” Akira waved the spoon at him. “I’ve got to remember to get my parents to sign the thing for the school trip. I’ve got less than a month ‘til the deadline. Apparently we’re going to Kyoto to do the hot springs or something.”

Morgana tilted his head. “You don’t sound very excited.”

Akira chuckled. “Well,” he said dryly, “the last trip I went on wasn’t particularly great. And I can’t say I’m thrilled about going to Kyoto with a bunch of people that don’t really want to be around me. Can’t wait to hear the debates about who has to take one for the team and share a room with me.”

“They’d probably change their minds really fast if they knew who you were,” Morgana grumbled. He didn’t comment on the Golden Week trip; there wasn’t much to be said there.

“Yeah, but I’d really rather not tell the whole country that I was the leader of the Phantom Thieves,” Akira pointed out, not for the first time. Half the country didn’t even think the Thieves existed anymore, and of the ones that did, there were probably plenty who had a bone to pick with the people that had undone the Conspiracy. Even someone like Maruki, who had _intended_ to be benevolent, had used Akira’s identity against him in his own way. A _year_ of being lied to and groomed into giving up information… He had no intentions of going through anything like that again any time soon. Better to keep it a secret and keep himself and his friends safe. His parents were the only ones in his hometown that knew the truth, and even they didn’t know all the details. The metaverse, Yaldabaoth, the dream world… It was too much to try to explain.

Morgana understood, despite his grumbling. They’d talked about this before; Akira’s safety overall was the most important thing. It didn’t stop Morgana from wishing that people treated Akira better.

Akira finished his breakfast, got dressed, and with a farewell to Morgana, left for school. His teachers here were both more observant and less benevolent than the ones at Shujin; he hadn’t even made it into the classroom with Morgana before being ordered to take the cat home. People had stared, confused and fascinated and wary. They still stared, but at least it wasn’t the malice and fear that riddled his classmates at Shujin.

Today when he got to class, several of the girls were crowded around one of their desks, fawning over the new issue of a magazine. Akira caught a glimpse of the cover on the way past and hesitated.

“Excuse me?” he asked, and all of them looked up at the same time, which was honestly a little creepy. “Sorry, I just wanted to see the picture on the cover.”

The girl sitting at the desk looked puzzled, but held it up enough for him to see the front. Ann’s smiling face looked back at him, with three other girls he didn’t know, all modeling fashionable summer outfits. For a moment, he smiled fondly, then remembered where he was and ducked his head. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome…” That was all the girl said to him, but as he walked away, he heard them start whispering loudly, and caught his name at least once. But he just ignored them, taking his seat and pulling out his phone.

> _[Ann - May 19, 2017] Talk to you soon, I’ve got a video call with Shiho!_
> 
> _[Akira - May 19, 2017] Tell Shiho hi for me._
> 
> _[Akira - May 22, 2017] I think one of the girls in my class made herself a poster of you. Can you believe it?_
> 
> \--- Today - June 15, 2017 ---
> 
> _[Akira - 8:26am] I saw your new magazine cover today. You look great._

He almost messaged the group chat to ask if everyone had seen it, but the teacher walked in, and he quickly put his phone away.

Maybe later.

***

After school, he packed his things and got ready to return home. He hadn’t joined any clubs; his classmates had made it very clear they were uncomfortable with having him around. Of course, that also meant he was further the odd one out, but he would rather be at home than enduring their awkward aside glances. At least the rumors at Shujin were funny, in a bleak way. This was just...nothing. He’d almost prefer the whispers of _‘I heard he stabbed someone’_ than discomfort with his general existence.

It was peaceful, though, going home on his own. With everyone else still at school or work, there weren’t many people out.

He should have known that it wouldn’t last. A couple of months of peace and quiet were all he was going to get.

Halfway home, he was brought to a halt by a police officer calling, “Hey, you there!”

Akira, when he saw who had called to him, froze, his hands tightening on the straps of his bag. He didn’t move, watching the man walk towards him with purposeful strides.

“You’re heading home early,” the officer said.

“I...don’t have any club activities,” Akira managed through the tightness in his throat. He wished Morgana was here. He wished he could be Joker, instead of a nervous wreck. But Joker had no support here, away from everything that had made him what he was, and Akira was left to do his best not to show weakness. Did this officer recognize him? Did he remember him as someone who supposedly committed assault? Was that why he’d been stopped?

“You’re awfully jittery, kid,” the officer said. “Everything okay?”

“It’s just been a long week. I just want to get home,” Akira mumbled.

The officer chuckled. “I can agree with that. Go on, then. Just don’t get in any trouble on the way.”

He patted Akira on the shoulder as he walked away, and Akira flinched. Damn it, what was wrong with him? Nothing had even happened; he shouldn’t be reacting like this.

But his heart still thumped painfully in his chest, and leftover adrenaline fizzled sharply in his veins, and he walked home as quickly as he could. His parents still weren’t home from work, so he went up to his room and threw himself on his bed, waking a napping Morgana.

“Akira?” Morgana questioned, once he realized it wasn’t some sort of earthquake. “Is everything okay?”

“Got stopped by police on the way home…” Akira muttered into his pillow. “Wasn’t anything, he was just wondering where I was going, since I don’t stay for clubs, but… I don’t know, I shouldn’t be so freaked out.”

“No one’s going to blame you for being afraid of the police, after everything that happened,” Morgana pointed out, walking over to pat his face with a paw.

But Akira just made a disgruntled sound. “I’m not _afraid_ ,” he said. “I’m frustrated! I’m fine; I shouldn’t be shaking like I haven’t seen worse monsters. I’m still the leader of the Phantom Thieves; I should be better than this.”

Morgana grumbled in response, climbing up to lie down in a loaf on his back and purr loudly. “You should tell the others,” he said. “Or at least talk to them until you feel better.”

“They’re probably busy,” Akira huffed, but he obediently wiggled his phone out of his pocket without dislodging Morgana. For a moment, he looked over the last messages in the group chat, then typed one out and hit ‘send’.

> _[Haru - May 7, 2017] I’m still sad I missed you, Akira-kun. I’ll make sure there are no meetings scheduled during summer break._
> 
> _[Akira - May 7, 2017] It’s really not your fault if they sprung it on you. But thank you._
> 
> _[Yusuke - May 13, 2017] upload:_ _{gallery.jpg}_
> 
> _[Ann - May 13, 2017] That looks so good!_
> 
> _[Makoto - May 13, 2017] It seems like you have a good crowd._
> 
> _[Akira - May 13, 2017] I’m sorry I can’t be there, but definitely take more pictures._
> 
> _[Yusuke - May 13, 2017] I will dm them to you._
> 
> _[Ryuji - May 27, 2017] upload:_ _{image0.jpg}_
> 
> _[Futaba - June 2, 2017] upload:_ _{candle.jpg}_
> 
> _[Akira - June 2, 2017] ...thanks, Futaba._
> 
> _[Akira - June 5, 2017] School is so boring without you guys. Even planning the class trip is no fun._
> 
> _[Akira - June 9, 2017] Anyone have any ideas what we should do for summer break?_
> 
> \--- Today - June 15, 2017 ---
> 
>  _[Akira - 3:57pm] Apparently I’m just a police magnet._ (╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻

He set the phone facedown on his pillow and sighed. “Happy, now?”

Morgana kneaded at his back. “I’m just worried about you. Don’t be an ass like Ryuji.”

“I don’t want you to worry. I’m fine, Mona, seriously.” He was fine. He had to be fine, because if he wasn’t, he didn’t know how he was going to make it through the rest of this year.

***

There was no response to his message until that evening, when he was half-heartedly doing his math homework. Morgana perked up when he heard it, and Akira picked it up to check the messages.

> _[Haru - 7:18pm] Are you all right? What happened?_
> 
> _[Akira - 7:19pm] I’m fine. He just wanted to ask where I was going._
> 
> _[Akira - 7:19pm] I’ve had time to calm down._
> 
> _[Haru - 7:24pm] Thank goodness._
> 
> _[Haru - 7:24pm] I was worried you might be in trouble again._

Akira flinched. He should have included context with his message. Now she had been worrying about him.

> _[Akira - 7:25pm] No, really everything is fine. Don’t worry about me._
> 
> _[Haru - 7:28pm] I‘m glad you’re okay, but of course I’m going to worry._
> 
> _[Haru - 7:28pm] If something is bothering you, you can tell us._
> 
> _[Haru - 7:29pm] I have to go now; I have an important phone call. But remember what I said._
> 
> _[Akira - 7:29pm] I will. Thanks, Haru._

“Why didn’t you tell her how bad it freaked you out?” Morgana asked, once he set the phone down. “You were shaking.”

“It’s past now. No big deal. I overreacted. And you saw what she said; she had a phone call.” Akira pulled his math workbook close again. He didn’t need this. He could take care of himself. “It won’t happen again. I know not to worry now.”

Morgana prowled back and forth, clearly unhappy with the answer, but he let Akira finish his homework in peace. It was only after he’d changed for bed and settled in that the cat nudged up against him worriedly. “Did any of the others respond?”

Akira shook his head. “They’re busy, Morgana. They probably saw me tell Haru everything was fine and knew they didn’t need to ask again.”

Morgana hesitated, then asked, “Are you going to text Goro?”

He could feel the way Akira’s breath hitched, just for a second. “No, Morgana. If he’s out there reading my messages, he doesn’t need to hear about me being ridiculous.”

“You…” But Morgana just sighed and curled up beside his head. Akira wasn’t as stubborn as Ryuji or Yusuke, but it was a near thing some days. Pushing him would just make him shut down. Morgana had seen that firsthand, months ago. The difference was that at the time, Akira hadn’t had time to process or let his dark thoughts catch up to him, but this…

At least he was here. _Someone_ was around to keep an eye on Akira.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There will be art for this. I've decided to post it a chapter at a time to stall for my artist. :P


	2. Chapter 2

Morgana, being Hope, had hoped that Akira was right, that all of this was just a passing thing and they were going to move forward to better things, like going back to Tokyo for summer break. A roadtrip would have been fun, if everyone’s schedules would allow.

But Akira, despite his repeated insistence that he was fine, was doing worse. On the outside, he was his usual self, if a little more tired than usual. But Morgana was the one who was there when he had nightmares, when he cried in his sleep, when he relived the interrogation and begged someone to help him. It was frustrating to know that subconsciously he wanted help, but refused to ask for it when he was awake.

“Talk to the others!” Morgana headbutted his shoulder furiously. It was a Sunday, but all Akira had done was lay around his room, reading manga on his phone and napping. “Don’t just lay around all day! You haven’t left the house for anything but school in a week!”

“You’re the one always bugging me to get enough sleep,” Akira said, reaching up to ruffle Morgana’s ears and earning a grumbling meow. “I don’t feel like going out, Morgana. And the others are busy.”

“Have you guys gotten _anything_ planned for the summer break trip?” Morgana huffed. He ducked away from Akira’s petting, padding around until he found a spot that would force Akira to strain if he wanted to continue. “Summer break is in a month! Have you talked to your parents about going back to Tokyo?”

“I haven’t had time.” Akira sighed, finally putting his phone down and rolling over. But he didn’t try to resume petting, just yawned. “I’ll get to it. And I’ve texted the others, but… Well, like I said. They’re busy. There’s never more than two of them around at a time, and they don’t have a lot of time to talk. It’s hard to plan like that.”

Morgana hesitated. “Have you told them about your nightmares?”

Akira frowned. “No. And I’m not going to. It’s not a big deal. Everyone gets nightmares after bad things happen, and I had basically a whole year of bad things.”

Besides, what kind of person was he if he couldn't handle a few nightmares? Sure, he could cry to his friends, but then they might think they needed to come all the way out here, and they had their own worries. Exams were coming up. They had jobs, obligations, lives, and they didn’t need to spend their time fretting over him. That left his parents, and if he tried to explain his nightmares to them, he would most likely get well-meaning but empty attempts at comfort. They could understand Shido, and corruption, and hacking. But how were they supposed to understand that he’d nearly been murdered multiple times over? That a _cognitive god_ had tried to murder him? That a madman had tried to _rewrite reality?_ He would sound like a lunatic.

He could handle this.

But as the days passed, it became clearer and clearer that his brush with the law had knocked something off-kilter. Something had woken up but hadn’t aligned properly; Joker’s instincts from a year of battles overlaid on an increasingly-tired Akira just trying to make it through the day, leaving him on-edge and anxious. He avoided anyone that even looked like the police. Thoughts of the Conspiracy trying to find him lurked in the back of his mind. One day, he could have sworn he saw Maruki watching him from a parked car.

The week that his gym class started a unit on aikido, he felt himself wavering, swept up in thinking of Makoto teaching him a few moves and Joker’s muscle memory. He put every partner he had on the ground with no trouble at all, and when it was his turn to get flipped onto the mat, he could take it in stride and roll back to his feet on instinct, Joker’s smile bright on his face.

It unnerved his classmates, how well and how fluidly he could move. It wasn’t something that could be explained by gymnastics training alone, and it didn’t match the Akira Kurusu that they remembered from the first year of high school, before he left. It barely matched how he shuffled through the halls the rest of the time. So Akira kept his distance, and so did they, and if it meant that Morgana was the only one he really had to reassure, all the better.

So what if the nightmares didn’t go away? So what if he was more tired? So what if he didn’t have any friends in his new school, and his actual friends were too busy for more than brief conversations? Everything was fine.

***

Things came to a head on the last day before summer break.

The halls were packed with students jockeying to be the first out of the building, eager for their month of freedom from classes. Akira wove his way through as best he could to his shoe locker. He just wanted to go home and take a nap before trying to deal with the summer break plans that he hadn’t made yet. His parents had asked about whether he was going back to Tokyo to visit, but all he’d managed was a noncommittal mumble. Futaba and Sojiro would be happy to see him, he knew, but he just couldn’t muster the enthusiasm.

Shoes on, he headed out into the front courtyard, and was almost to the gate when suddenly something grabbed his shoulder.

“Hey, Kurusu, are yo—”

A year of thief instincts getting him through traps and battles and near-death experiences kicked in, and he grabbed the hand holding onto him, spinning effortlessly around and yanking the person’s arm up behind their back. It was only once the move was complete that he registered the pained yelp of one of his classmates, and that a crowd was forming, staring at him as he held the other boy pinned. Akira let go immediately, but the damage was done. People were already whispering among themselves, and he could only imagine the field day people would have, now that he’d ‘confirmed’ for them that he was the same delinquent capable of hurting people that he’d supposedly been when he was sent away.

“What the hell?” the boy he’d grabbed demanded, rubbing his arm.

“I… I’m… sorry.” Akira turned and ran, dodging through the watching students and fleeing through the gate. He’d screwed up, that was clear enough. Was summer break going to be enough to make people forget what had happened? Probably not, not in a town this small. People still remembered what he’d supposedly done a year ago, even though his charges had been cleared. It didn’t matter that he’d saved humanity; no one would ever know that. He would probably always be the delinquent that had been sent away in their eyes, and what he’d just done only added to that.

...Morgana was right. He wasn’t okay.

His parents weren’t home, thankfully, and he hurried to his room, pulling out his phone. He sent a frantic message to the group chat, asking if anyone was there, and then dragged himself into bed as Morgana rushed into the room.

“Akira?! What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know,” Akira mumbled shakily. “I just… I don’t know what’s wrong, I don’t know why I’m like this. There’s nothing to be afraid of, but I’m…”

Morgana jumped onto the bed, nudging worriedly at him. “You kept saying you were fine!”

Akira ran his hands through his hair. “I thought I was! I was trying to be! I… I’m trying and it’s not enough and no one can fix it because no one can understand what happened except…” He glanced at his phone. “Except them, and they’re not answering…”

Kneading the blankets anxiously, Morgana began, “You said they’ve been busy… Maybe they’re just out right now…”

“So it could be hours…” Akira pulled himself into a ball. “I don’t know what to do…”

“I… I’m sorry, I don’t know how to help!” Morgana said. “But you always know what to do…”

But he didn’t always know. He didn’t. One of the most important decisions of his life, and he’d hesitated. They didn’t know that, but the only person who had kept him on the right track was…

He picked up his phone and pulled up a different chat. A private chat. With shaking fingers, he started typing.

> _[Akira - May 6, 2017] Well, the Golden Week trip was a bust. Half the Thieves didn’t have time to even see me. Futaba and Sojiro were great, but I’d hoped we could all get together. I know it’s not their fault, I know they have their own lives, but… Still. It was kind of lonely._
> 
> _[Akira - June 2, 2017] Happy birthday. Wherever you are, I hope you’re doing all right. I miss you._
> 
> _[Akira - June 28, 2017] I heard someone mention the Detective Prince today and I almost gave myself whiplash, but they were talking about Shirogane-san. I keep forgetting that no one remembers your fame. It’s weird. Cognition is weird._
> 
> \--- Today - July 20, 2017 ---
> 
> _[Akira - 3:45pm] Goro please pick up the phone_
> 
> _[Akira - 3:45pm] reply, call me, something, please_
> 
> _[Akira - 3:45pm] i just really need to hear your voice right now_
> 
> _[Akira - 3:46pm] everything is bad and i don’t know what to do_
> 
> _[Akira - 3:46pm] please_

His hands were shaking, and Morgana tried to rub against him, worried. Together, they stared at the phone, but after a few minutes, Akira set it aside and pushed himself to his feet. “I’m going to go get a drink. I’ll be right back.”

“I can come with you,” Morgana began, but Akira shook his head.

“It’s just downstairs, Mona. I don’t need an escort.” He hurried out of the room before Morgana could object any further, not wanting the cat to see him cry on top of all of his other weaknesses.

For fuck’s sake, what was he doing? Sending texts into the void, hoping that an echo of a dream would answer? Goro had promised to come back, but Goro had started out as a liar; it would only make sense that the last thing he would offer would be a comforting lie to make sure Akira did the right thing. Akira hadn’t believed he was dead, but Goro had, and Goro was infuriatingly smart and intuitive.

He swallowed a sob. Everyone had trusted him to help them, and he had no idea how to help himself. Maybe that was why they barely spoke to him anymore. He kept telling himself they were busy, but maybe they had moved on. They’d gotten the help they needed, and now they just didn’t need him anymore.

And Goro, he’d helped Goro, but he hadn’t been able to save him…

...what if Goro was dead?

He felt dizzy; his vision blurred, and he was forced to catch himself on the counter. His stomach was twisting itself into knots. The smallest fragment of his rational brain wondered if this was what Futaba felt like when she was having a panic attack. Was he having a panic attack? His limbs felt so heavy all of a sudden. He needed to go back upstairs and lie down.

The stairs felt like they were a mile away, but he made it, somehow. But when he stumbled to the top, he was forced to shield his face against a gust of wind that threw up dust and grit. He rubbed his eyes, and then they flew wide with shock.

The second floor of the house wasn’t there. The top of the stairs, instead of opening onto the hallway, ended at the base of a grassy bluff. Akira looked around frantically, staggering to the top of the hill and trying to see where he was. It didn’t look like his hometown, it didn’t look like _anything_. It was a bizarre crush of half-familiar buildings and spaces, like someone had taken everywhere he loved and thrown them together into a heap of what might generously be called a city. Nothing looked like it connected or made any sense at all, and there was no sign of his room.

“M-Morgana?” he called tentatively, then, louder, “Morgana?! Are you there?”

There was no response, and he groped in his pocket for his phone. Something was wrong, he needed to call...his friends, his parents, _anyone_. But his phone wasn’t in his pocket, and he remembered setting it on the bed before he’d gone downstairs. It was lost, like Morgana, and the rest of the house.

He needed to get it together. This wasn’t a hallucination; it was too real and solid for that. So what was happening? Was this the metaverse? He hadn’t brought his phone downstairs, and he didn’t have his weapons or his thief gear. He couldn’t even sense Arsène. 

He was on his own.

The ground quaked, and he braced himself until it stopped. At this point, he didn’t have a choice. He needed to look around and see if there was a way out.

Returning to the house revealed that, while the first floor was intact, the door was blocked and the windows only showed more of the strange mishmashed cityscape. There was no escape that way. So he steeled himself and ventured down the bluff into the city itself, hoping for any kind of clue what was going on. The streets and alleys formed by the crush of buildings didn’t always connect properly, so sometimes he found himself scrambling up or down rubble, or jumping to reach a staircase that wasn’t quite flush with the walkway. And his surroundings refused to stay consistent. Venturing into what looked like the diner on Center Street led into a hallway that looked like the ones in the Velvet Room, which opened onto the Shujin gymnasium, whose doors led to the beach. Akira surveyed the landscape with increasing confusion, wondering how he was supposed to do or find anything when nothing was where it should be. And it was so difficult to drag himself along. He felt alert enough, but his body was so weary, like the lethargy he’d felt over the past few weeks had doubled, tripled, and he was finding it hard to focus. It was tempting to lie down on the beach for a while, but he had to keep going.

A detour through one of the alleys of his hometown, though, opened into the main floor of the Casino. It was deserted, lights and colors on display for no one. No one except the uncomfortably-familiar figure perched on one of the stair railings, smiling crookedly.

“My, my, you’re really here.” It was Joker, but not. He was missing the coat, and everything else he wore was black, except for his gloves. His pants were tight and rode low on his hips, and his vest was cut high on the sides to show off sharp hipbones. His hair was the brightest scarlet, almost glowing with how saturated the color was. It washed out his pale, grey-tinted skin to an almost-ghostly pallor, and his bright gold eyes glimmered behind the black mask, an inverted version of Joker’s normal one. “I’m surprised you made it here.”

“What…?” Akira murmured, disbelief coloring his voice. “I don’t understand. What is this?”

The shadow Joker slid down the rail he was sitting on, landing on his feet at the bottom and sauntering up to Akira. “Welcome to the Trickster’s Maze, my lost little kitten,” he said, circling in a way that made Akira nervous. “You’re smart; you should know where you are. Come on, now.”

Akira felt his heart in his throat. “This isn’t… I can’t have… a Palace…?”

“Palace, maybe. Dungeon. Stronghold. You’re too many things; it’s hard to define the world of a Wild Card’s heart,” Shadow Joker said, amused. He leaned in to examine Akira’s face. “I’m surprised you’re still awake; it’s such a strain for our heart to be in pieces.”

“No!” Akira shoved him back. “No, I’m not… This is all wrong. I was just stressed, I’m fine, this isn’t mine.”

The ground rumbled again, and Shadow Joker grinned. “How are you going to explain me, then, hm?” he teased. “Surely if this wasn’t yours, I wouldn’t be here?”

“Are you… Arsène?” Akira asked, a catch in his voice.

“Not quite.”

“Then…” Akira felt like he was grasping at straws. “Then you’re not me! If you’re my shadow, you would be Arsène!”

There was barely a whisper of air, and then Shadow Joker was crowding into his personal space, pushing him back against a column and catching his chin in a punishing grip. “Be careful who you say that to,” he purred. “You never know who you might upset. Just because I’m not _Arsène_ doesn’t mean I’m not you. You are more than the mask you wear, aren’t you?”

Akira said nothing, shaking, eyes wide and mouth dry. Shadow Joker smiled, running a fingertip along his jaw. “You wouldn’t be wandering around if you knew how to return home. That must mean you’re stuck here with us~”

“Let go of him.”

Akira managed to look over, just in time to see another Joker roughly grab the shadow by the shoulder and drag him back. This one was wearing the coat, but the colors were inverted, red coat and black leather gloves, and something about his bearing seemed more suited to the ‘gentleman’ aspect of the gentleman thief.

“Arsène!” Akira gasped, because this one was obvious.

Joker nodded, his golden eyes fixed on his doppelganger, and offered Akira a hand. “Come. We’ll figure out how to send you home, Akira, but you mustn’t stay here. And you must get help.”

Akira’s heart twisted. “There… There isn’t any help…” he choked out. “I can’t… How am I supposed to ask for help with this?!”

“You’re right, you can’t. No one can understand!” Shadow Joker agreed. “Our parents don’t know anything about the metaverse, therapy is out of the question, and our friends would just be so shocked to know we have a Palace~! They don’t need to know that their perfect leader has fallen so far, right~?”

“I…” Akira reached up to clutch at his hair with one hand, the other still held firmly in Joker’s. 

Joker pointed his knife at the other shadow. “Stop, _now_.”

“But why?” Shadow Joker asked. “It’s nothing we don’t already know. We cry and no one can hear us; no one notices our broken mask, locked up in our cell with no future… We’ve lost _everything_ that matters. Even…”

_“Stop,”_ Joker demanded, but the shadow grinned.

“Even Goro, hm?”

It was the last straw. It was a knife directly to the most painful wound, and Akira let out a wail. Joker’s knife disappeared in a flash of blue fire as he turned to support him, but it was too late. It was too much. Akira crumpled, and Joker could do nothing but pull him against his chest, keeping him from tumbling to the ground.

Shadow Joker smiled, prowling closer. “Oh my. That was the last straw for us, wasn’t it? The name of the boy we love so much that we’ve deluded our self for months into thinking he’ll text back.” As Joker lifted Akira into a princess-carry, the boy’s head lolling against his shoulder, the shadow reached out to poke at his heart, before running his hand down the length of his body. “You should put him somewhere safe, better half, since we can’t get him home~”

Joker frowned. “This is his Palace. No lesser shadow should touch him. He should be safe here regardless.”

Shadow Joker leaned in ever-closer, his hand gripping possessively at Akira’s thigh. “But you don’t understand,” he purred, his smile a dangerous slash. “You’re right, this is _his Palace_. All of this, born of him, the creator of this twisted, broken mindscape. Constructing it from nothing!” His voice dropped to a low murmur. “Would that not make our dear real self the _god_ of this place?”

Joker’s eyes widened, and, careful not to drop Akira, he planted a red-gloved hand against his counterpart’s face and shoved him back. “You wouldn’t dare,” he said, cradling Akira against his chest.

“I wouldn’t?” The shadow rocked back on his heels, still grinning. “Of course not. I’m the leader! I save everyone, not hand them over to monsters.” His grin turned cruel in an instant, and his eyes flashed with malice. “Except when I _don’t_. Perhaps I’ll add something else to my list of failures…” He spun around, waving a hand carelessly. “Good luck~ How long can you keep us together, I wonder? We’re barely hanging on as it is.”

And then he was gone, leaving Joker to glance down at his real self with alarm. 

Someone would come. They had to; he’d fallen into the metaverse. He had vanished from reality. Someone would notice, and figure out what had happened. But keeping him safe until then… Regardless of difficulty, he had no choice. He wasn’t strong enough to fight another facet on his own, just one part of Akira’s will, but he could run, and he could hide, and he could make sure their real self was in one piece.

Even if his mind wasn’t.


	3. Chapter 3

When his eyes fluttered open, it was immediately apparent that he was no longer in his plush hotel futon. Everything was entirely too blue, for starters, a blue that he hadn’t seen in months. Seeing it now meant nothing good, nor did the small hand shaking gently at his shoulder.

Goro sighed, pushing the blanket off and moving to sit properly on the sofa. “Hello, Lavenza.”

“Knight,” Lavenza said, stepping back and folding her hands together. “I didn’t wish to call to you like this. I know you have been on your own, rediscovering your sense of self, but I have no other choice.”

That sounded ominous. Was her voice shaking, or was he imagining things? Goro leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “Is something wrong? You must be quite desperate if you’re coming to me. The merry band back in Tokyo wasn’t available?”

Lavenza’s lip wobbled, and Goro hesitated. “...what happened?”

“Th-The Trickster…” Lavenza said, valiantly trying to keep her voice even. “I tried to contact him, but even though he slept more than usual, his sleep was too restless to bring him here. He’s… His heart has fallen to despair and distorted his reality. You’re the only other one that I could reach out to. You love him too; you have to help him, please.”

Goro stared at her, trying to ignore the way his heart had leapt to his throat. “You’re kidding,” he said. “Akira would never fall like that. His friends would never let it get that far.”

“I don’t _know_ ,” Lavenza cried. “I just know that he’s distorted. _Please_ , Knight, you’re the only one I can ask.”

It was hard to wrap his brain around it. Akira was the strong one. He was always the one reaching out; he always knew what to do. But...maybe that was the problem. Maybe they had all assumed he was fine. Maybe they had ignored the warning signs. And Goro hadn’t been there…

He reached out and gently rested a hand on Lavenza’s head. He didn’t know her well, yet, but he couldn’t deny being fond of her, and he couldn’t stand the sad-puppy eyes she was directing at him. “I promise you. Whatever is wrong with that idiot, I’ll go drag him back to his senses. Please don’t make that face.”

Lavenza took a deep breath and gathered her composure as best she could, letting Goro’s hand fall to her shoulder. “Thank you…” she said. “I know that your compendium is limited, but I will do everything I can to help.”

Goro chuckled. “If a fleet of angels isn’t enough to wake him up, I might have to take you up on that.” He tilted his head. “Is there anything I can do for you now?”

She fidgeted, and Goro tried to think like Akira. He was going to have to do a lot of that in the near future; he might as well start now. With a faint smile, he sat back and opened his arms, and knew he’d made the right choice when Lavenza lunged forward to hug him.

“I’m so scared for him,” she said. “You’ve both been through so much…”

“I’ll take care of him,” Goro assured her, wrapping his arms around her. “This is partially my fault. It’s the least I can do.”

He stayed with Lavenza a little longer, making sure she was okay, and when he woke up, he picked up his phone.

It had been off for months. He hadn’t looked at it. He’d needed...time. Space to breathe. The chance to just _be_ and figure out on his own what he wanted to do. He’d promised Akira that whatever happened, he would come back, but...maybe that hadn’t been enough, if he didn’t have other support.

And when he read the texts that came in when he unlocked his phone, he was inclined to think that was the case.

The owner of the little inn he was staying at was very understanding when he had to cut his trip short, and within two hours he had packed, checked out, and was figuring out what the shortest train line was to get him to Akira’s hometown. He had the address; Akira had given it to him that last morning. But finding a train to get there took him longer than he wanted when he knew Akira was in trouble.

He was closer here than he would have been in Tokyo, at least. It took the better part of a day, but he arrived in the town just before dinner, and managed to find a room at an inn. Then, it was just a matter of heading to Akira’s house. He didn’t want to go to the door yet, but he could at least take a look around. Part of him hoped to see Morgana; the other part didn’t want to cause a scene. If he could do this himself for a little while, it might work better. He’d have time to see what kind of mess had spawned. Pretentious as it sounded, he liked to think he knew Akira better than anyone else. And selfishly, he wanted a head start.

Keywords, though… The nav had been missing for months. Goro had assumed it disappeared completely after they dealt with Maruki. But Lavenza wouldn’t have sent him if he couldn’t help, so he pulled out his phone, and this time, there it was, the eye glowing Velvet blue. The empty entry fields sat before him, and he frowned. What did Akira see this place as?

Well, he knew where to start. “Akira Kurusu.”

The nav beeped cheerfully, and then to his surprise, brought up the prompt to begin navigation.

“What…?” Goro muttered, eyeing it suspiciously. No location? No distortion? But Lavenza had said that he was distorted… What the hell was this place going to be like?

...it didn’t matter, did it? He was going in regardless.

He looked up at the house, where there was a single light on downstairs, and then back at the phone. For just a moment, he had the thought that he should probably wait until morning. He had been travelling all day. But Akira needed him, and if he went in and got a better idea of what he was dealing with, there was a chance that he could take that knowledge and help Akira face to face, instead of traipsing through his head.

The shift to the metaverse was unremarkable, but Goro stumbled as he found himself on a much steeper hill than than the street had been before. Once he regained his balance, he looked around, confused. He stood at the top of a hill with the bottom half of Akira’s family home halfway buried in the ground behind him. A bizarre patchwork of a city surrounded him, no rhyme or reason to its layout, and while he recognized bits and pieces, it was hard to focus on any one thing when everything was so jumbled together. This was Akira’s world? This scattered mess? No wonder he was suffering, if his worldview was so fractured.

Goro made sure that the nav had recorded his entrance point, then ventured into the tangle of spaces. It didn’t make sense. Yongen-Jaya’s backstreets turned into the courtyard of a strange castle filled with roses, and opening the door to the tower dropped him into… Akihabara, possibly? It was hard to tell. There was no sign of Akira’s shadow anywhere, and no lesser shadows bothered him. There were no cognitions wandering the streets, either. For all the chaos of the environment, it was a quiet, empty world.

He eventually found himself in one of the hallways of Shido’s ship, walking quickly to find a different area. Even knowing it was Akira’s memory and not the ship itself, it still made him uncomfortable, so he opened the first unlocked door he found, and stopped dead as he stepped directly into Leblanc. A few elderly cognitions were seated in the booths, but there was no sign of Sojiro. Just the familiar figure of Joker seated at the counter, sipping from a mug of coffee.

“What are you doing here?” Goro demanded, shaking his head to clear the lingering shock and heading for the thief. His colors were wrong, far too much red, but it was clearly him. “Being in your own Palace can’t be safe—” But he stopped as Joker turned to look at him, eyes bright and wide and _golden_ behind the mask. “Wh… What? Are you…?”

“Goro…” Joker whispered, and there was warmth and relief and so much _longing_ in his voice that Goro felt his heart skip a beat. Joker got up and came over to grab him in a hug, burying his face in Goro’s shoulder. “You’re not a cognitive. I know you’re not, because there are no cognitives of you in this place, so you must be the real thing…”

“J-Joker,” Goro began, pushing him gently back and reaching up to cup his face so he could see his eyes. “Are you… Akira’s shadow?”

Joker smiled sadly. “One of them, _mon cher,_ ” he said softly. “One of them. You know what we are. It’s not so simple as having a single shadow.” He leaned into Goro’s palm. “You really came. We… weren’t sure.”

“Of course I came,” Goro huffed. “You absolute moron. You’ve scared Lavenza half to death. She came to get me so I could knock some sense into you.” He let go of Joker’s face to run his hands over his shoulders, down his arms. The last time he’d seen Akira, he’d been in the properly-colored version of this outfit, standing far below at the end of everything. It seemed right to see him like this now. Although, if the French and the red of the coat were any indication, he knew who this really was. “Arsène, right? Can you take me to the Treasure?”

“I cannot,” Joker said, though the small smile on his face indicated that Goro was at least right about his identity. “This is not purely a Palace, so no Treasure exists to steal.”

Goro considered that, absently petting the leather beneath his fingertips. “Then either take me to the source of the distortion, or tell me what I can do to get through to Akira in reality.”

“I am only one part of our consciousness, and there are things here stronger than me,” Joker replied, and his brow furrowed with worry above his mask. “The source of the distortion isn’t one specific thing. As I said, there is no Treasure. And…” He hesitated, then, “You will not be able to get through to Akira in reality, because he isn’t in reality. He’s here.”

_“What?”_ Goro’s grip on Joker’s shoulders tightened. “He’s inside his own Palace? That idiot, what was he _thinking?_ Take me to him, now; he can’t stay here.”

For the first time, Joker’s expression turned hard and determined. “No. Akira’s heart has shattered from the strain. He’s lost consciousness. If you take him home, what then? Will you return him to his parents, sleeping with no means of waking? They’ll take him to a hospital, there will be questions, everything will get worse in the aftermath. So long as he is here and none find where he is hidden, he is safe.”

“And what happens if something does find him?” Goro demanded.

“That won’t happen.”

But Goro saw the crack in Joker’s unflappable confidence, and bit back a scathing comment. Stubborn as always, even in pieces. But there was no point in arguing with Joker. He had a point about Akira’s parents. The best route now was to figure out how to solve this Palace as fast as possible. “What do I need to do to help him?”

“Our broken pieces need to be pulled back together, and for that, they need to be healed of the damage that broke them in the first place,” Joker said. “I can stand at your side, but...I genuinely believe you know us well enough to do this.”

Goro raised an eyebrow, finally letting go of Joker and stepping back. “What healing do you need, then?”

“None!” Joker adjusted his glove with a flourish. “I am our confidence. The foundation of our rebellious heart. _I’m_ fine. The others will return to me when their distortion is cleared.”

“And what about your merry troop of idiots? Aren’t you going to tell me to call them for help?”

Joker grinned rakishly. “Don’t call my friends idiots, _mon cher_.” But then his smile slipped. “I would not turn down their help. But if you call them, that’s up to you.”

That was by far the most unnerving thing. If Goro knew anything about Akira, it was that he loved his gaggle of ridiculous friends. If he was apathetic to whether or not they were roped into this rescue mission, this...maze...might be more severe than he thought.

Either way, this wasn’t something he could handle tonight. He’d learned what he was hoping for; now he needed to strategize. He and Joker had been on their own once before. They would be fine. He just needed time to prepare, and a good night’s sleep after travelling all day.

“I’ll be back for you,” he promised quietly, and Joker smiled.

“I would expect nothing less.”

***

Goro slept as well as could be expected, knowing that Akira was unconscious in his own mental nightmare-land. If this had been a year ago, he would have had no problems tearing through the Palace the previous night. But he’d done his best in the interim to fix his sleep schedule, to eat better, to learn things he’d been missing, and his body was no longer used to running on fumes. He’d spoiled himself.

He was awake early the next morning, though, and once he’d forced himself to eat breakfast and pick up a few things to carry with him into the Palace, he headed back towards Akira’s parents’ house. But he heard voices before he saw them, clamoring and familiar, and when he got closer he saw the Phantom Thieves, crowded on the corner and chattering among themselves.

“We can’t _go to the door_ ,” Futaba was insisting. “I called his mom! She thinks he’s with us! If we go to the door, she’s gonna freak out because none of us know where he is!”

“You really don’t know where he went, Mona-chan?” Haru asked.

Morgana was seated on the sidewalk at their feet, all of them apparently oblivious to how it would look to have a crowd of unfamiliar kids standing on a corner, all talking to a cat.

“I told you,” Morgana said loudly. “He went downstairs, and then he just wasn’t there anymore! I thought he’d gone for a walk or something, but he never came home. I didn’t know what else to do except call you guys!”

Goro watched them, one hand on his hip, debating whether to risk opening the can of worms that would be revealing himself to them. This wasn’t what he’d wanted at all. He’d had every intention of showing himself to Akira first.

Did Joker count?

Despite his reservations, he didn’t flinch when Ann looked up from the opposite side of the group and made eye contact. It was almost amusing to watch the color drain from her face, especially when the others noticed her reaction before they saw him. There was a clamor to figure out what was wrong, and then the whole group finally figured out where she was looking, and Futaba screamed.

_“IS THAT A GHOST?”_

“What the _fuck?_ ” Ryuji blurted.

Goro rolled his eyes and headed towards them, glancing at the house as he went. “Shut up and stop yelling. Do you really want someone to come investigate why you’re all congregating and staring at his house?”

“Akechi?!” Ann managed in disbelief. “Y-You’re alive? We thought that…”

“You disappeared!” Ryuji said.

“How did you survive?” Yusuke asked.

“Presumably I was never dead to start with, all things considered,” Goro sighed. It had been thirty seconds and he was already tired. “I woke up in my apartment after a lengthy conversation with Lavenza about reality reverting to what it should have been, which implies that in the proper reality, I somehow escaped the metaverse and made it home eventually, and did not get assassinated by any of Shido’s leftover minions. I still have no memory of how I made it out, and I left Tokyo near the end of March.”

He had a sneaking suspicion Lavenza and her master were responsible for his miraculous survival. He refused to ask.

“Why are you here, though?” Makoto asked. “Morgana called us; how did you know to come?”

“Lavenza came to get me,” Goro said, feeling smug satisfaction at how awkward they all looked. “I arrived yesterday and scoped things out a bit. I’m assuming you’re all aware of what’s happened?”

“What do you mean?” Sumire asked. “Do you know where he’s gone?”

“...good lord…” Goro pressed his fingers to his temple. “So all you know is that Akira has disappeared?”

“If you know something, tell us!” Futaba demanded. “What did Lavenza tell you? The last message he sent was asking if any of us were there, and then he vanished! Something happened to him!”

Goro’s eyes narrowed at the accusatory tone in her voice. “He’s fallen into his own distortion. Not quite a Palace, but equally as damaging.”

There was an immediate clamor of disbelief and panic among the Thieves, and Goro watched with a hint of amusement as they cycled through frantically trying to dismiss the assertion, realizing that none of them had really checked in with Akira recently – which just further cemented for Goro that this was partially their fault – and wondering what they were supposed to do if he really did have a Palace. It was Futaba who finally pulled out her phone to look for the nav, finding that Lavenza had returned the now-blue version of the app to all of them as well.

“Obviously we have to go in after him,” Makoto said, falling immediately into the role of acting leader. “We’re going to need his keywords, though.”

Goro said nothing, watching as all of them debated possibilities until _finally_ someone bothered to enter Akira’s name and realize that it was the only field they needed to fill in. Then their voices dropped, muttering and whispering among themselves until Makoto turned back to him.

“Akechi,” she began, clearly trying to sound firm. “We think it’s best if you stay behind.”

It took a second for that to register. “...excuse me?” he said coldly.

“You’ve been gone for months!” Morgana said. “If the first time he sees you again is inside a Palace, inside _his_ Palace, he’s going to have to worry about whether you’re real or not all over again! It could break him!”

“He’s already broken, Mona, in case you didn’t notice. I’m not staying on the sidelines,” Goro snarled. Joker had already seen him, and nothing had happened. These idiots, thinking they knew what was best for Akira when they hadn’t been there...

“It could break him _worse!_ ” Morgana insisted.

“You never bothered to contact him, or any of us,” Haru said. “We thought you were _dead_. We _mourned_ for you.”

“It doesn’t seem as though any of the rest of you were particularly amazing at keeping in contact, either, considering how shocked you are by his current condition,” Goro countered. “Which of us was here first?”

Sumire, the only one of the Thieves with no reason to be wary, spoke up then. “I think we should let Akechi-senpai come with us. He’s important to Akira-senpai.”

Goro found himself softening just a little. It had been fairly obvious that she had developed a crush on their leader, even more so than the others on the team. That Akira instead chose to direct his affections elsewhere had probably been quite the disappointment. And she had always been a bit wary of him, since in her words, he was ‘ruthless’. But she was still on his side. That was...surprisingly nice to know.

“Don’t worry about it, Yoshizawa-chan,” he said lightly. “I believe the only way we can work together is by making deals anyway. So I will offer my proposal. If you all can solve at _least_ one aspect of this Palace without me, I will stay behind. And when you can’t, I’ll be here waiting to take over.”

“Of course we can do it!” Ryuji said. “We’ve got all of us; we’ll figure this out in no time.”

“We know Akira well enough that this should be a piece of cake!” Ann said, pumping her fist, and the others agreed. Sumire was the only one who looked uncertain, glancing back at Goro, and he nodded. They would be back. He knew it for sure. The Phantom Thieves, for all their strength, were still naive. This whole situation was proof of that. They would be lucky to find anything in the maze, much less actually solve any sort of puzzle or trap Akira could come up with.

At least he could see if there were more productive ways to spend his day than just waiting around for them to come crawling back.

***

It was late afternoon when the Thieves finally reappeared. Goro had explored Akira’s hometown a little, speaking to a few people casually about whether anyone remembered the original assault incident. No one really questioned why someone from out of town would think to ask; it had been the biggest scandal their sleepy little town had seen in years. Especially once it came out that the person who had accused the Kurusu boy was Masayoshi Shido. People were fairly indifferent to Akira now, but most of them, especially the ones old enough to be his classmates, were fairly insistent that there was something ‘off’ about him since he’d returned from Tokyo.

Off. Right. He had a distortion, of course he was off. But Goro just smiled and moved on, until he returned back to the Kurusu house to wait for the Thieves.

They were all-smiles when they approached him, and Goro immediately knew they’d made no progress.

“Well?” he asked.

“We did it!” Ann chimed. “We figured it out.”

“So you don’t have to worry about coming with us. You can wait for us to bring the real one back,” Ryuji added.

Goro raised an eyebrow. “So, what did you have to do to solve the puzzle you found?”

They all looked at each other.

“We…” Sumire began, but trailed off, and Makoto continued, “We had to figure out what he was afraid of, and defeat a monster.”

“Mmm…” That sounded reasonable enough, but… “What was it?”

“An Ongyo-ki,” Makoto replied.

“No. What was it before it transformed?”

“Maruki,” Yusuke said confidently, and Goro got up from his spot on the bench he’d claimed.

“Nope. I guess I’ll be accompanying you after all.”

There was a clamor of protest, and Haru objected, “What? Why? We solved the puzzle, just as you asked!”

Goro fixed them all with a deadpan look. “You’re terrible liars. Akira isn’t afraid of Maruki.”

“Maybe you don’t know him as well as you think you do!” Ryuji huffed.

“Or perhaps you simply want to keep me out regardless of our deal,” Goro countered. “This isn’t a debate. Either I go with you or I go alone. I gave you a day as a courtesy, but I will _not_ let you idiots bumble your way through this place and leave Akira trapped there for even longer.”

“Akechi—”

“Oh for crying out loud,” Ann exclaimed. “Just let him come. We completely screwed up that puzzle. There’s no point in faking if he already knows we’re lying. Are we trying to fix Akira or not?”

“I’m with Ann-senpai,” Sumire said. “We can’t… We can’t pretend we know him the same way that Akechi-senpai does!”

“So you know what Akira’s afraid of?” Ryuji asked, folding his arms and staring at Goro.

Goro rolled his eyes. “Of course I do. But I’m not giving you the answer. You’re taking me with you, or you can figure it out yourselves.” He glanced at his phone. “It’s too late in the day, so I will see all of you tomorrow morning, and we can finally make some progress.”

He waited long enough for all of them to nod, then turned to leave. He’d wasted enough of his day on them. He would go back to the inn, figure out a plan of attack for tomorrow, and get some rest.

Hopefully this wouldn’t turn into a massive headache.


	4. Chapter 4

_“Don’t oversimplify this.” A wavering voice in a cafe that felt too bright on a dark night. “Your life isn’t a… a small thing. And you seem pretty certain that you're not going to be here afterwards.”_

_“It_ is _simple. In comparison to a whole world trapped under that lunatic’s thumb, possibly having to give up my life is nothing. Do you think I want his mercy? Do you think I want your pity? I want him_ stopped, _and your hesitation is a betrayal of my wishes.”_

_“You… You just…”_

_“What? I think I’ve made myself very clear.”_

_“It’s not_ pity, _you dumbass!” It was a shout. “You really can’t imagine_ any _other reason that I wouldn’t want you to die? For fuck’s sake, Goro!”_

* * *

The next morning, Goro woke up feeling guilty.

It wasn’t a new emotion, and he had other things to focus on. There was nothing he could do about this particular guilt until he saw Akira again. So he dragged himself out of bed and started his routine, and roughly half an hour later, received a text from Sumire.

She’d gotten his number from Akira’s phone, which Morgana had stolen from Akira’s bedroom. The rest of the Thieves were apparently going to breakfast together, and she wanted to extend the invitation to him, too. He wasn’t sure how he felt about this sort of “team activity”, but turning them down was probably more trouble than it was worth, so he sent a reply and finished getting ready.

At least it gave him a chance to ask about the progress they’d made yesterday.

“Did you at least find a safe room?” He poked at his omelette, refusing to put any effort into pretending he wanted to be there.

“Just one,” Haru explained. “It didn’t seem to be a weak point in cognition, just a location that Akira-kun sees as safe. It was his room in the attic, at Leblanc.”

Goro tilted his head curiously. That explained why the safe room he’d found was the cafe area of Leblanc. Apparently Akira saw them as two different places, but both were considered ‘safe’. It was interesting, but it might make future safe rooms difficult to differentiate from normal areas.

He told them about the cafe, but omitted his conversation with Joker. He wasn’t sure how much they knew about his and Akira’s relationship, if you could even call it that when they hadn’t acknowledged it until the eleventh hour.

“It’s possible that the locations of safe rooms correspond to a puzzle being nearby,” Makoto theorized. “Meaning the tricky part will be navigating the maze itself.”

“Well, it’s not like there’s any shadows,” Ann pointed out.

“There are no shadows right _now_ ,” Morgana said. “We don’t know what will happen once we start changing things or upsetting cognitions.”

Yusuke had been eating quietly, but he stopped and tapped his sketchbook where it was sitting on the table beside his plate. “I will continue to map our progress, so we simply need to be on our guard.”

Once they determined that it would be too suspicious to keep congregating outside of Akira’s house, they found a deserted corner of a nearby park instead to activate the nav. The distorted city sprawled around them, and Ryuji pulled up the menu to jump them to the attic.

Sumire walked over to look at the plushies arranged on the top shelf of Akira’s work desk. “I meant to ask yesterday… Why are we in our thief gear? Does Akira-senpai really see us as a threat?”

“Of course not—” Ryuji started, but Goro cut him off.

“At least some part of him does. It’s probably part of his distortion.” He hadn’t really noticed the first night that he’d been in his Black Mask outfit, but it was undeniable now. The only thing missing was his helmet; the stiff collar and headpiece were gone, leaving only the arched mask resting lightly on his face. He had to admit, it was more comfortable like this. “We shouldn’t be worrying about how we’re dressed. Show me this puzzle you all had so much trouble with.”

“Right. It’s this way.” With no hesitation, Sumire beckoned him to follow. He ignored the other Thieves watching him and fell into step behind her. They had every reason to be upset with him. From their perspective, he’d hurt Akira. But from his perspective, they’d hurt Akira just as much. And they were the ones having trouble with the puzzles.

Leaving the attic gave way to something that vaguely resembled the hallways of the police precinct. There was a brief detour through the Shujin library and the nurse’s office, before Sumire pushed open a door and said, “In here. This weird prison.”

“Velvet Room,” Makoto corrected, and Goro hummed thoughtfully. Lavenza had mentioned that this was how Akira’s version of the room had appeared, but he’d never seen it in person.

He touched Sumire on the shoulder as he brushed past her, a silent thanks, and headed down the stone stairs. There were several branching hallways, but Goro kept moving straight ahead until he reached a barred door and could go no farther. The hallway ended in a tiny cell with a narrow cot, just one of many that ringed the round room in the center. And sitting cross-legged in the middle of the floor was another golden-eyed Akira, wearing the striped garb of a prisoner.

“Oh,” the Akira said, his eyes glittering. “They’ve brought you this time.”

“Well, you can’t expect them to figure these things out on their own, can you?” Goro quipped.

“Hey!” Morgana objected from somewhere behind him. Goro paid him no mind, looking over Akira. On closer inspection, it wasn’t just prison garb marking him as part of this place. His limbs were bound, each with a different restraint. A thick chain, the links square and made of dark metal, connected to a shackle around his left ankle. A slightly-tarnished silver chain with fine links looped around his right ankle. Around his left wrist, a red rope was tied, and around his right, one of Maruki’s tentacles tipped with claws was latched on.

Goro raised an eyebrow. “Will you let us out of this cell so we can talk to you properly?”

“I can’t,” Akira said, pulling his knees to his chest. “If I let you out, it will let out the monsters, too. I’m too afraid...”

“That’s how this works? We’re locked in until we can defeat whatever you’re afraid of?” Goro asked, and Akira nodded. Nevermind that there were no other doors, meaning that technically, Akira had locked _himself_ in the center of the panopticon. But there was no point in arguing specifics. They couldn’t get to him unless they alleviated what was causing his fear.

“See?” Futaba said. “We’ve gotta fight something. But there’s nothing here to fight. I’ve scanned this whole area, not a shadow in sight.”

“There’s just a bunch of stuff on pedestals all over the hallways,” Ryuji added.

Goro turned away from the bars. “What kind of ‘stuff’ do you mean?”

Makoto gestured back towards the hallways. “All kinds of things. Model trains, apples, one of those daruma from Shido’s ship… We figured out pretty quickly that they’re symbolic. Obviously our leader isn’t afraid of trains. Or wood. But none of them did anything. We’ve smashed them all at least once; they just re-form.”

“Show me.”

The Thieves walked him through the prison. There _was_ a model train, and an apple, and a daruma. But there was also a police badge. A syringe. A dusty plank of wood. The Holy Grail, in its more reasonably-sized Treasure form. A gun. Joker’s mask. And, most unnervingly, a skull wearing Goro’s black mask. Goro took it all in, looking over each object and listening to the others explaining and speculating.

“I thought it was the syringe, because he’s been weird about doctors since November,” Futaba said. “But I got Inari to stomp on it, and nothing happened.”

Sumire raised her hand. “I thought it was the skull, but Ryuji-senpai smashed it with his bat, and nothing happened after that one, either.”

“We tried all of them. And every time we looked away, they would just reappear,” Haru said. “We don’t understand what he wants us to do, and he won’t tell us anything more.”

Goro frowned. They weren’t thinking this through properly. This was Akira they were talking about. It took until the last moment for him to speak honestly about what was on his mind. There was no way this was as simple as the explanation they’d been given. Akira was a liar, just like him, even if his lies were white.

“What if it’s the chains?” Yusuke said. “Perhaps four of these objects correspond to the chains the shadow is wearing.”

“Oh! So if we break all four, that might be the answer!” Ann clapped excitedly. But then she wilted a bit. “How do we know what goes with what, though?”

“...the apple is probably Dr. Maruki…” Makoto mused.

The Thieves rallied in the background, trying to come up with metaphors and organize themselves so that someone could be watching each smashed object to keep them from reappearing. It wasn’t a bad plan. Goro could admit that to himself. But something still felt wrong. He knew what Akira was afraid of. He just had to figure out what he wanted him to _do_.

“Goro?”

He flinched at the unfamiliar familiarity of Haru Okumura using his first name. When he turned to look, she was standing a few feet away, head tilted curiously. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” Dragging him out of his thoughts allowed him to redirect his focus to what he’d actually been looking at: the prop of Joker’s mask. “I’m...thinking. I know the answer, I’m just not sure what he wants me to do with it.”

There was a crunching sound somewhere in the background as the others smashed something, but Haru ignored it, looking thoughtful. “Akira-kun is quiet. It’s hard to tell what he’s thinking. But he’s very deliberate when he acts. Maybe we need to be deliberate?”

“...so, what if the intention matters? Not just the right answer, but knowing why, which is why destroying everything indiscriminately didn’t work.” Goro pressed a hand to his mouth in thought. “We have to show him that we understand him. And...that we know how to defeat a fear.”

He reached out and picked up Joker’s mask. “Come on. We need that piece of wood, as well.”

“The wood? But we didn’t know what that one was,” Haru said.

Goro took a moment to smile over his shoulder. “It’s a floorboard.”

***

After retrieving the dusty plank and the rest of the Thieves, Goro led the way back to the cell door to see Akira, objects in hand.

“...you’re back,” Akira said, eyeing the mask and plank. “But I can’t unlock the door… You have to understand that.”

Goro leaned the plank on the wall and pushed the mask through the bars, dangling it in front of Akira. “These are what you wanted, right?” he asked rhetorically, watching Akira reel back from the cell door. “Or maybe what you didn’t want. The way to defeat a fear is to face it, and you had all of those decoys so that we wouldn’t be able to make you face yours. But I know you better than that. Take a good look. You’re not scared of evil gods or bastards like Shido. And yes, needles make you anxious. But this is what you’re really afraid of.”

“Are you implying that our leader is afraid of Joker?” Yusuke asked. “That doesn’t make sense.”

“He’s afraid of himself?” Ann suggested. “Or like...Joker's responsibilities?”

“You’re afraid that Joker is all that you are,” Goro accused. “Isn’t that right? You’re… God, you’re infuriating. You’re afraid of letting go of Joker and moving on, because you can’t see a future beyond all of this, can you? I certainly know how _that_ feels. I never imagined it would affect _you_ this badly.” The more he talked, the more he was convinced that he was right, and he gestured at the chains the shadow was wearing. “The Velvet Room’s Trickster. Maruki’s pity-project. Your friends’ support. The world’s scapegoat. You don’t know how to exist as something beyond that. You cling to Joker because you’re afraid there’s nothing else there.”

He pulled the mask back through the bars, took it in both hands, and snapped it in half. Akira yelped, and the rest of the Thieves gasped.

“Akechi, wait a second!” Ryuji stepped forward to grab his shoulder. “Are you sure that’s not hurting him?”

“You said you’ve smashed everything in this prison at least once already,” Goro said, sparing him a glance.

“Yeah, but he never reacted like that!”

“...doesn’t that mean we’re making progress, if something new is happening?” Haru pointed out.

The prisoner had curled into an even tighter ball on the floor, the chains rattling as he hunched into himself. “People don’t want Akira,” he said pitifully. “They want Joker. What am I supposed to do if I can’t be Joker?”

“Of course we still want you, even if you’re not Joker anymore!” Morgana cried. “We’re your friends… We’re your family!”

“Is that how it works…?” Akira murmured. “Does being family really matter?”

“Of course it does!” Futaba said, rushing forward to cling to the bars beside Goro. “You always belong with us! It doesn’t matter if you’re Joker or Akira!”

Goro retrieved the wooden plank. “Which leads us to this,” he said. “Your fears feed into each other. You fear being abandoned if you’re not what others want.”

Makoto made a startled sound. “Wait, is that one of the attic floorboards?”

“But the attic’s his room.” Ryuji sounded baffled.

“...not at first, though.” Morgana looked at the floor, pensive. “You guys didn’t see it for a while. At first it was dirty and there was junk everywhere. He had to clean all of it up before it started looking like an actual room.”

Ann looked at the shadow, shivering and watching them from under his bangs, and frowned. “You told us your parents sent you to live with Boss... You didn’t tell us it was that bad at first...”

Akira’s voice was muffled behind his knees, but they could still hear him as he said, “It wasn’t… by then it didn’t matter. It wasn’t important.”

“Akira-kun…” Haru whispered.

“We’re not going to abandon you, senpai!” Sumire called. “You’re our friend; we love you!”

“Everyone understands now,” Goro said, and broke the plank over his knee, throwing the pieces at Akira’s feet along with the fragments of the mask. “You don’t have to be afraid anymore. You’re not bound to what you were. All of us are here to help you.”

There was a metallic click, and the cell doors swung open as Akira pushed himself to his feet. “...you do understand, now,” he said softly. “That...doesn’t fix everything, but it helps.” He reached out to Goro as his restraints fell to the floor. When Goro stepped forward to grab his hand, he said with a tiny smile, “The rest of me won’t be so easily reassured, I don’t think.”

“We’ll figure it out, then. I’m not leaving you here in pieces. You have to come back to me; I’m already annoyed that you collapsed before I could come home.” Goro squeezed his hand, and the shadow laughed.

“I didn’t mean to, honey… Everything was just too much…” He picked up the shackle that had been around his ankle, pressing it into Goro’s hand. The chain had dissolved, and as Goro looked down at it curiously, the shadow said, “You’ll know what to do. I know it.”

He dissolved into light, leaving Goro with the shackle as the rest of the Thieves entered the space, and Futaba asked, “So do we keep that? Is it some kind of key item?”

Goro shook his head. _“The others will return to me when their distortion is cleared,”_ he muttered, then, louder, “Joker. Come out.” 

The rest of the Thieves stared at him, confused, only to all start talking at once when the thief himself appeared from one of the cells, heels clicking on the stone.

“Is this Akira’s actual shadow?” Haru asked.

“Why are his coat and gloves the opposite colors?” Ann tilted her head.

Goro ignored them, focusing on the tiny smile on Joker’s face. Their reactions, plus that smile, told him all he needed to know. “Did you not show yourself to them?”

“No,” Joker said, a hint of a catch in his voice. “They were working out the solution on their own.”

“...I suppose I can’t blame you, considering that I did essentially the same thing. Probably for the same reasons.” Goro offered him the shackle. “I presume I’m meant to give this to you, since you said that you were the foundation of his rebellion.”

When Joker touched the shackle, it dissolved into lights that sank into his glove. Goro smiled involuntarily at the satisfied look on Joker’s face, then turned back to the rest of the group. “This is Arsène,” he explained. “Technically. Apparently the only piece in this place that isn’t an emotional wreck in some form or another.”

“Truly, the most flattering description,” Joker teased. But then he straightened up and addressed the rest of the Thieves. “I can help you, but I cannot give you the answers. You have to solve this yourselves. And you have to be determined; the things that are waiting will not accept halfhearted answers.” He winked at Futaba. “No brute-forcing the puzzles.”

“Boooo,” Futaba said, sticking her tongue out at him. But then she shrugged. “Makes sense. There’s no point in helping if we don’t know _why_ he was like this in the first place.”

“Exactly.” Joker stuffed his hands in his pockets. “Let’s go back to the attic so we can jump back to the Leblanc safe room. I want to show you something.”

They trailed after him, falling into step behind their leader, and once they were back in the attic, Goro pulled out the nav, and the dusty room melted away into the cafe. Joker didn’t wait, heading out the door and further down the facsimile of the Ship’s hallway that waited outside. Goro briefly took note of the fact that the ‘maze’ wasn’t rearranging itself; however chaotic the architecture was, it was static. That was reassuring.

At the end of the hall, the door opened into the darkened auditorium of the planetarium, and they walked through in single-file, silent out of instinct even though it wasn’t the real version. The far door revealed a courtyard housing a building that none of them recognized, but Joker didn’t head for the door. He walked around the side, where a graffiti mural dominated the entire expanse of the wall.

Makoto reached up to touch the graffiti gently. There were seven images painted onto the wall, stretched across the space like a spread of tarot cards. Each had a name written where an arcana would be on a real card. At the far end, the Fool was familiar, a stylized version of the red-coated Joker. At the near end, the World was as well, with an image that resembled Akira dressed as Satanael. And in-between, more Akiras. The Velvet Prisoner. The Troublesome Child. The Cracked Marionette. The King of Hearts. And one so badly damaged that the only thing they could make out was a black silhouette.

The Prisoner’s image was the only one in color. Small dashes of color dotted the Fool, but it was by no means complete.

“Is this how we know how much progress we’ve made?” Makoto asked. “Some sort of...representation of his mental state?”

“Something like that,” Joker quipped. “These are the remaining pieces. You won’t be able to reach the World until the end, though. Our World has been locked away by the distortion in our heart. It has to be cleared first. Even I cannot reach him.”

“What’s that one?” Futaba asked, pointing at the damaged image. Yusuke had drifted past them, examining the graffiti with fascination.

Joker was silent for a long moment, and everyone shifted awkwardly.

Ryuji broke the silence with an unsubtle cough. “So where’s the real Akira in this mess?”

“Somewhere that the other pieces can’t find him,” Joker said.

Goro scrutinized him, watching the way his brow furrowed and he tugged at his gloves. “Are you _afraid?_ Is something here really so dangerous that Akira might…”

“Shh.” Joker held a finger to his lips. “One thing at a time. Focus on what can be done for now, leader.”

“Leader?” Morgana blurted, and Joker grinned.

“Does anyone object?”

And what were they supposed to say, when Akira’s will of rebellion had made very clear what he wanted? Even Goro, not thrilled at suddenly being responsible for eight idiots, couldn’t say no. Joker looked around at them all, eyes glittering with mirth, and winked at Goro.

“Well then… where shall we go next?”


	5. Chapter 5

Goro’s first decision as the newly-appointed leader of the Phantom Thieves was to decide that jumping back to the safe room was a pointless endeavor. They checked the building that the mural was painted on, but the front doors were locked, and there were no other entrances. This area was a dead-end. So Goro led the way back across the courtyard towards the exit, and they filed back into the planetarium.

It was eerie, being in the room when it was dark and empty. Normally there would be an audience waiting eagerly for the show to start. Instead, there was just uneasy silence; even the Thieves didn’t want to say anything, as if worried something might be listening.

As it turned out, something was.

All of them jumped as the false sky lit up with a projection of fireworks, filling the space with colossal, booming noise. In the flickering lights, they scrambled to search for whatever had triggered the start of the show, but the auditorium was as empty as ever. And then Sumire shrieked as a dark shape pushed itself up from its seat in the audience and came right at her. Before she could reach for a weapon, it was right in front of her, grabbing her hands, and her mouth dropped open. “S-Senpai?!”

Bright gold eyes sparkled with mirth, and the shadow pulled her forward into a twirl. He never stopped moving, letting go of her and leaving her to stumble from the spin as he darted towards Haru instead. This one wasn’t wearing the coat, and had on all-black and red gloves. He leaned in to kiss Haru’s cheek as he passed, and she covered her mouth with a hand, eyes wide.

Scarlet hair, black mask with white detailing, this was like no version of Akira they’d ever seen, and they were too slow to react as he moved through the group like a whirlwind. A friendly arm around Ryuji’s shoulders, used as leverage to shove him into one of the auditorium seats. Playfully catching the end of Makoto’s scarf, and then looping it around her, tangling her arms. Roughly mussing Futaba’s hair, pulling Ann’s tail, scooping up Morgana and rubbing his cheek against the top of his fuzzy head before catching Yusuke’s hand, kissing his knuckles and passing Morgana off to him. They were all left confused in his wake as he bypassed their Joker entirely and slung his arms around Goro’s neck.

“We match now!” he said gleefully, running a hand down Goro’s chest. “I’m _so_ glad you wore the tighter outfit.” He gestured to his own tight pants and high-cut vest, then nuzzled Goro’s jaw. “I do appreciate the loss of that pointy bit, though~”

“H-Has he always been such a flirt?” Ann whispered to Makoto, helping her untangle herself.

“Maybe that’s what this piece is? All of his flirtatiousness at once?” Makoto whispered back.

Goro had frozen as Shadow Joker plastered himself against him, but recovered quickly and shoved him back. “What the _hell_.”

“You’re actually here. And here I was, teasing our real self that you might have really been dead all along,” Shadow Joker said with a grin. He glanced over at Joker. “Did we make a formal bet on that, better half? What do I owe you?”

“Maybe you should owe me your surrender,” Joker said coldly.

“Oh, you know I can’t do that.” Shadow Joker laughed. “ _They_ have to solve this. Actually, I don’t think I feel like owing you anything. We might not have lost everything that matters, but we don’t know if they’ll succeed yet either, and I certainly won’t help.”

“Why _not?_ ” Ryuji demanded. “Joker’s helping us; why can’t you?”

“I’m sure I’d do more harm than good,” Shadow Joker said, batting his eyes at Goro. “I’m really just here to see everyone. It’s so exciting that you all turned up! Too little, too late, but a nice gesture regardless.” He leaned a hand on his hip. “Be careful, though. You’ve disrupted things, opening up the prison like that. The lesser shadows will be out and about now.”

The Thieves wilted a little, and Goro rolled his eyes. “You weren’t expecting this to be a cakewalk forever, were you?”

Shadow Joker beamed. “They have trouble with simple things as it is. Of course they’re disappointed.”

“Hey!” Futaba huffed. “That’s rude. We’ve solved one puzzle already!”

“Ah, ah, but you needed help,” Shadow Joker teased. “You don’t know us as well as you think you do, hm? You’d better learn fast; there’s no way to stumble upon the solutions in this place.” He winked at all of them, then headed towards the door they’d come from, back to the courtyard and the building with the mural. “Good luck~”

“Shouldn’t we stop him?” Makoto blurted as he vanished through the door. “He’s the King of Hearts from the mural, right? Shouldn’t we go after him and figure out what he wants?”

Joker frowned. “He’s...one of the more autonomous pieces. As you can see, he’s not bound to one area. I wouldn’t recommend chasing him without gaining more knowledge of what this place is like. As he said, you won’t be able to stumble on a solution, and I cannot guarantee he won’t harm you if you fail.”

Sumire looked at the floor. “Akira-senpai wouldn’t… He wouldn’t hurt us… Right?”

“I can’t make any promises,” Joker murmured. “There are parts of Akira that are very badly hurt. And those in pain do not always think before they lash out.”

“I guess we just have to keep going, then,” Yusuke said. “Akechi, when we come out of the auditorium, I’d like you to describe how this place connects to the entrance…”

All of them were still slightly unnerved by Shadow Joker, but they kept going. After a brief stop to let Goro help Yusuke update his rudimentary map, they chose a direction they hadn’t searched yet and plunged back into the maze.

The sound stage from the Akasaka TV station, despite having several doors, was locked down except for one emergency exit. That, however, led into the underground mall in Shibuya, sprawling out in multiple directions. The stores were as wildly varied as the real mall, but in this version, each one was representative of a facet of Akira. One store was filled to the brim with every variation of Shujin’s uniform: summer, winter, rainy day, a sea of red and black plaid and stiff, formal school blazers. Another had a mannequin in Joker’s usual outfit, while the racks were filled with the same, but in different colors. Muted purple, deep crimson, royal blue and sunshine yellow… And in the very back, white, trimmed in red and gold.

The Thieves split up to check the different paths for an exit, but kept getting distracted by the shops. One was full of knives, everything from practical hunting knives to fancy, jeweled pieces that were obviously more decorative than useful. Another was full of beautiful kimono and accessories. There was even a store where everything was leather, biker jackets and fashionable boots and a sexy cop outfit that was clearly for a woman, but also looked like something Akira would definitely wear.

When they reconvened, there was a singular choice to make.

“So there are two other exits from the mall area,” Makoto summarized. “One leads to some kind of forest path, and the other is a school hallway. Not Shujin; probably his old school from here.”

“A forest?” Haru questioned. “That can’t be anywhere in Tokyo, then…”

“That does seem rather unusual.” Goro glanced at Joker. “I presume our fearless leader would take a vote?”

Joker tilted his head like a cat. “Does it matter what we would do? I put you in charge because we trust _your_ judgement, _mon cher_.”

Goro sighed. Infuriating bastard. At least none of the other Thieves showed any kind of recognition to Joker’s pet-names. He could only guess that either Akira was like that to everyone, or they thought he was doing it to annoy Goro.

...he hoped Akira wasn’t like that to everyone.

“We should check the forest first,” he said. “We’re supposed to be learning more about Akira, so it follows that we should check the most unfamiliar area, because it is the most likely place for us to learn something new.”

_We know enough of schools, of abuse. I know how they rejected him,_ he didn’t say, thinking back to mostly-honest conversations over billiards and cocktails. Akira had talked about things from his hometown with an undercurrent of laughter in his voice, but the mirth never reached his eyes. In hindsight, Goro should have expected this.

No one objected, though he wasn’t sure if it was because they respected his temporary place as leader or because no one had a better idea. And so the forest it was, and as soon as they stepped through the door, they could feel the difference in the air. This area felt lighter. Clearer. It was easier to breathe, somehow. That didn’t mean there weren’t shadows lurking in the foliage, and the group was forced to fight their way through in places. There wasn’t any consistency in how strong the shadows were, but they did seem to match the theme of the area. Mandrakes shared space with Narcissus, fairies from the lowest Pixie to Titania herself… This place was clearly something fanciful, but there was no sign of Akira on the winding woodland paths.

Ann spotted the break in the trees first, hurrying ahead with Yusuke to clear some of the underbrush. But they stopped at the edge of the trees, and when the group caught up, everyone took a moment to process what they were seeing.

It was a garden, massive and filled with every kind of flower they could imagine, and then even more. Like something out of a fairytale, it filled a huge expanse with color and sweet-scented air, almost overshadowing the house visible beyond it. It was clearly Akira’s parents’ house, which meant this was likely an exaggerated version of Akira’s backyard.

And in the center was a very young Akira.

He looked five or six, with big golden eyes, wearing shorts and a slightly oversized red t-shirt with black and white stars. Ann and Haru muffled a squeal at how small and cute he was, but Goro threw out an arm to stop them from moving towards him, his eyes on the taller cognitions prowling the edges of the garden.

“Wait. Watch,” he said sharply.

Two of the cognitions started across the garden, and the little Akira ran towards them. It was a man and a woman dressed smartly in work clothes, and Akira reached up to tug at the man’s coat, saying something that the Thieves couldn’t hear. The man barely glanced down. _“Not now, Akira.”_

Akira’s expression fell, and from his body language, he was talking louder, straining to reach higher. But he still didn’t make a sound, and the cognitions ignored him, walking off and out of view.

Versions of the same repeated over and over. The man and woman wore different clothes, Akira made different appeals for their attention, but the outcome was the same. He was brushed off and left in the garden, and eventually he sat down in the center, head bowed, and stopped trying to chase the cognitions at all.

Goro glanced back at the team. “If we all go at once, we’re liable to scare him,” he said. “Takamaki, Kitagawa, will you come with me?” Both of them nodded, and Goro continued, “The rest of you, hang back. Keep an eye on the cognitions and make sure they’re not getting agitated or hostile, and make sure that insufferable shadow doesn’t come back.”

There was a ripple of agreement, and Goro headed into the garden with Ann and Yusuke at his heels. Akira didn’t see them at first, but when he did, he scrambled to his feet with wide eyes and ran over to throw his arms around Goro’s legs. His expression was plaintive, and his mouth moved, but no sound came out.

“You’re not making any noise. We can’t hear you,” Ann said.

Akira frowned, clinging harder. He tried again, frantically mouthing the words, but it was impossible to tell what he was trying to say. Goro hesitated, then laid a hand on his head. “Slow down, Akira,” he said gently. “Let me try something.”

Big, trusting eyes blinked up at him, and then Akira nodded against Goro’s leg.

“Okay…” Goro began. “Are you hurt at all?”

Akira thought for a moment, then shook his head.

“Are those your parents?” Goro gestured to the cognitions beyond the flower beds.

A nod.

“Do you know who we are?” Ann asked.

That made Akira hesitate, confused. His small hands pulled at one of the belts on Goro’s leg, expression growing more and more puzzled, until Goro ruffled his hair gently. “It’s okay. Don’t worry about it.”

Akira released his leg, only to grab for his hand and Yusuke’s tail. He tugged them towards the center of the garden, only letting go long enough to wave at Ann to come too. Once they had obliged and seated themselves in the grass, Akira dropped himself into Goro’s lap and looked up at him, waiting for the next question. It was hard to tell whether he trusted them, or whether he was just latching onto any sort of affectionate attention, but Goro tried to focus on what he remembered of being a child himself, and held the little shadow securely.

“Do you know why you can’t be heard?” Yusuke asked.

Akira shook his head, and said something that looked like it was probably supposed to be loud. But this time, when he opened his mouth, there was the tiniest hint of a sound, and all three of the Thieves exchanged a glance, making sure they’d heard right.

Ann leaned in. “It might be working!” she said eagerly. “Say something else, Akira!”

He tried, whole sentences, but all that came out were whispers too faint to be understood. Goro tried to be supportive, but as they tried to ask more questions, Akira just grew more and more frustrated, tears welling up in his eyes. He burrowed further into Goro’s lap, near-inconsolable, and Goro squeezed him. “There has to be something else we can try,” he said. “Some other way to figure out what’s hurting him, and how to fix it.”

“Perhaps there’s something in the garden?” Yusuke mused. “There are certainly enough flowers here to disguise a clue.”

At that, Akira perked up, and then he was fighting his way out of Goro’s lap and back to his feet. Without even trying to explain, he dashed off into the garden, leaving the Thieves baffled. But he wasn’t gone long, and he returned with an armful of sprays of tiny purple flowers. He held them up proudly, taking a step towards Goro, but it was Yusuke who spoke up. “Ah, I see.”

“You do?” Ann asked, and Akira turned sharply to look at him, eyes wide.

Yusuke gestured to the armful of flowers. “Our leader was teaching me hanakotoba, because I was interested in the potential artistic symbolism. Those are ericas, and in hanakotoba they mean ‘loneliness’. Akira-kun is...lonely.”

Before they could process that, Akira dropped the bundle of flowers, nodding furiously. Goro looked around at the garden, then back at Akira, and blurted, “Can we communicate like that?”

Akira kept nodding, then ran off again. Ann watched him go, looking worried. “He’s lonely? But...he has all of us. He has to know that. Even though we’ve been busy…”

“Does he?” Goro asked. “I’m aware that most of you couldn’t even make time for him over Golden Week, when he came specifically to visit you. If you haven’t been making an effort to respond to his messages or give any indication of caring at all…”

“Hey, that’s not fair,” Ann countered. “What about you?”

“I made him a promise,” Goro said, a touch of bitterness in his tone. “And if he had been in his right mind, he wouldn’t have doubted me.”

Ann looked like she wanted to say something else, but Yusuke hushed them both. “Don’t fight in front of the child,” he admonished, as Akira rounded a bush and ran back up to him.

This time, he was carrying a handful of three kinds of flowers, and he handed them to Yusuke and waited with a pleading look. Yusuke took his time looking them over, and finally said, “Primrose, pansies, and...yellow camellia?”

“Yes!” Akira said, and while he was muffled, like he was trying to speak from underwater, it was obvious what the exclamation was. 

Yusuke didn’t react with shock or excitement; he simply resumed his thoughtful examination. “Very good. So if that is the case… You are desperate for someone to care, correct?”

Akira’s eyes welled up again. “Yeah. Nobody listens to me,” he said pitifully, and despite the wobbling, underwater quality of his voice, they were getting more and more of an understanding of what was happening.

Goro shook his head. “And because you feel like no one is listening, or making an effort, it translated into no one being able to hear you.”

“Does that mean we can hear him now because we’ve actually been trying?” Ann mused. “That seems almost _too_ easy.”

“Easy?” Akira asked, looking crestfallen.

Goro watched him wilt like an unloved flower and said pointedly, “If it’s so easy, then why hasn’t anyone been listening?”

“...you’re right,” Yusuke said. “We were so wrapped up in our own lives, we neglected to check in on each other. This could have been any one of us, but the fact that it’s Akira is...painful.”

“I listen to everyone else,” Akira sniffled.

“You do!” Ann said, shifting onto her knees and reaching up to wipe a tear track from Akira’s face. “We understand, now. You listened to all of us. All of our problems. And we should have paid attention to you, too. We didn’t mean for everything to feel so one-sided.”

“S-So I shouldn’t just stop talking?” Akira asked. “That’s what mama and papa probably want…”

“No,” Goro said firmly. “Don’t let anyone take your voice from you. Not even us. Never stop speaking up, ever. Even when people might not want to listen, don’t give up. It can change...everything.” If Akira hadn’t said anything that last night, he never would have known...

Akira took a step towards him. “I want… I want…” And for the first time his voice was clear. “I want to go home! To my real self!”

Goro smiled. “Then that’s what we’ll do.”

He got to his feet, followed by Yusuke and Ann, and Akira offered them a beaming smile before running back into the garden. He returned with a whole bouquet, and Goro beckoned Joker and the other Thieves closer.

Akira pushed the bouquet of bluebells and pink roses into Joker's arms, and then, as motes of light started to surround him, he turned and offered Goro a single lotus bloom.

Goro took it carefully. “What does this one mean, Akira?” he asked, but the little boy had faded into light and vanished. The bouquet did the same, sinking into Joker’s gloves, and Goro looked around at the others. “Did you hear all of that?”

“Yeah…” Ryuji said, and he sounded ashamed. “We...really didn’t ask how he was doing, did we? He was always checking in on us. That’s part of why he was such a good leader.”

Morgana and Futaba were hanging back, and finally Futaba blurted, “I tried to tell you he didn’t sound right! I tried to tell you his texts seemed off! We just left him here…”

“This might sound harsh, Sakura-chan, but crying about it now won’t help,” Goro said. “We need to get him out of here, and back in one piece, and then you can apologize all you want.”

As the group collected themselves to head back towards the mall area, Goro noticed Yusuke looking at his lotus flower with a serious, thoughtful expression. “Hm? What is it? Do you know what this one means?”

Quietly, so the others couldn’t hear, Yusuke said, “A lotus can be a symbol of purity or chastity.” As Goro tried to muffle a snort of laughter, he added, “However, it can also signify being far from the one you love.”

That made Goro fall silent, and he looked down at the flower, then back to Yusuke, brow furrowed. “I…”

“I do not believe it is my place to ask,” Yusuke said, and Goro found that he was genuinely grateful. He hadn’t expected tact or subtlety from the eccentric artist.

“Thank you,” he said, equally quiet, and Yusuke nodded.

“I would be prepared, however. If you are as important to him as I think you are, that will likely play a part eventually.”

It occurred to Goro, as they both hurried to catch up to the group, that Sumire’s heart might not be the only one that Akira had inadvertently broken. Depending on how many of the Thieves were nursing the remnants of a crush on their leader, this might be quite a bit awkward if the truth came out, considering their reactions to his reappearance.

But that was something for a future Goro. For now, he just looked down at the lotus he was still holding, allowing a small smile to cross his face.

_I’m coming, Akira. Wait just a little longer for me._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ericas - loneliness, solitude
> 
> Primrose - desperation  
> Yellow camellia - longing  
> Pansies - caring  
> “Longing and desperation for someone to care”
> 
> bluebells - gratitude  
> pink roses - trust, happiness, confidence
> 
> Lotus - purity, chastity, “far from the one he loves”
> 
> Also, please check out some beautiful art of [Baby Akira](https://www.deviantart.com/darkrooklobby/art/Silence-855954529) by DarkRookLobby!


	6. Chapter 6

Futaba’s attempts to map the Palace were still coming up as an unusable mess, but when they left the forest and returned to the underground mall section of the maze, she finally was able to pick up the reading of another Akira. Meeting four of them had given Al Azif enough to work with, and now she could at least pinpoint a general direction. Comparing that to Yusuke’s map revealed that they could get closer by returning to the entrance, the bluff near Akira’s parents’ house. So once they arrived, they noted the direction of the signal and followed it to a version of Inokashira Park bathed in twilight. All of them were grateful for Futaba’s tracking, because even with a map, there were far more exits to the park than anywhere else so far.

The park was filled, strangely enough, with angels. It slowed them down significantly, because the only one with curse skills other than Joker was Goro, and Joker, as only one piece of Akira, was far weaker than usual. But eventually they made it to another safe area, which took the shape of the Penguin Sniper darts lounge.

“This is somewhere he feels safe?” Futaba said. “This is just the darts place.”

“It’s fun,” Joker said. “Spending time together. Playing games together. No pressure except friendly competition.” He hopped up to sit on one of the pool tables, leaning back on his hands. “When so many of your relationships are mostly transactional, the quiet moments are the most valuable.”

“Transactional?” Makoto asked.

Joker hummed. “At first. Some more than others. A thief needs quite the web of contacts, after all.” His lofty tone was one-hundred percent carefree, but Morgana was looking unsettled, and many of the others felt uncomfortable without being able to concretely pin down why. It was Ryuji who finally spoke up and said, “We should keep goin’, then, yeah? So we can get him back together and give him more of those quiet moments.”

“...yes. We would like that.” Joker smiled, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes, and Goro got the feeling there was something still missing, something they didn’t understand yet. But he led them from their safe harbor regardless, and after making their way through the rest of the park, they emerged into the Scramble Crossing. It was less crowded than it would be in reality, but there were plenty of cognitions milling around...including the Thieves themselves, running up to talk to the Akira meandering around the crosswalks.

“There he is!” Haru chimed. “Let’s go!”

“Wait.” Yusuke caught her arm. “We should do like we did before, and observe. These puzzles are about understanding our leader’s heart; we need to pay attention.”

Goro and Joker exchanged a glance, a mutual communication of _‘they’re learning’._ As they watched Akira walk aimlessly around the Scramble, the cognitive Thieves approached in singles and groups to speak to him, chatting for a bit before splitting up again. Akira seemed in good enough spirits, but as he passed closer to where they were observing from, all of them realized that things were definitely not as they appeared.

Akira was dressed in a dull grey sweatshirt with the hood up, wearing a mask of his own face with a neutral, casual smile. His expression didn’t change even as a cognitive Ryuji ran up to him, saying something that they couldn’t make out over the chatter of the Scramble. But as the cognitive Ryuji spoke, a chunk of Akira’s mask cracked and dropped to the pavement, and the bit of his face they could see underneath was covered in bruises and dried tear tracks.

But the Ryuji didn’t seem to notice, and Akira scooped up the piece of the mask and stuck it back on, nodding to whatever the cognitive was saying with the fake, placid smile.

Goro frowned. He was like that with his friends? Why have friends, if you still had a mask on around them?

“If we’re going to get near him to talk to him, we probably need to replace the cognitions of ourselves,” Makoto mused. “There don’t seem to be cognitions of Sumire, Akechi, or Morgana, but the rest of us could subdue our duplicates…”

She was looking at him as she spoke, and Goro shook himself out of his thoughts and nodded. “Talking to him seems like our best bet to figure out how to solve this puzzle. It’s fairly obvious that it relates to the mask he’s wearing, but we need to learn how to get him to remove it.” Part of him wanted to push all the Thieves away and confront Akira alone. They were equals. They could be honest with each other, if no one else. But no one would agree to that, and having multiple perspectives wouldn’t hurt.

It took a while to incapacitate each cognition. Yusuke was taller than most of them, making it hard to wrestle him into submission, and Makoto’s aikido was a force to be reckoned with. But eventually they succeeded, and together they approached Akira, who had finally settled, leaning against the wall near the entrance to the bookshop.

“Oh,” he said. “Were we supposed to go to Mementos today?”

“N-No,” Makoto said, stumbling for only a moment before playing along. “We’re just checking up on you.”

“I’m the same as I was yesterday,” Akira said carelessly, and Goro watched a tear drip from under the mask he was wearing. But then his breath caught as Akira continued, “Pretending to be dead is exhausting.”

Half the Thieves looked at Goro, alarmed, but Akira didn’t seem worried about his presence. Or Joker’s, which was equally strange. Goro didn’t say anything, and finally Futaba chirped, “So, are you doing okay?”

“It hurts,” Akira said softly, and Goro looked at the ground. If this piece of Akira was from just after the interrogation, physically at least, he certainly would be hurt. But why was he wearing a mask over his pain?

“Are you sure?” Haru asked, which seemed like a strange reaction, in Goro’s opinion. But Akira nodded, and pushed himself off the wall.

“It doesn’t matter,” he said, and Goro noticed Sumire tilt her head, confused. But Akira was already walking away, and the Thieves trailed after him like a gaggle of ducklings.

“Wait, Akira, where are you going?” 

Akira didn’t stop walking, but he called back over his shoulder, “You’re the real ones, of course, or Arsène wouldn’t be with you. Don’t you want to solve things?”

Joker muffled a laugh into one black glove, and Goro shot him a baleful look. “This isn’t funny.”

The path took them away from Center Street, through the bus station on the opposite side of the Scramble. They passed the moai, the cognitions waiting patiently for their busses, and Akira finally opened up the doors to a nearby building and disappeared inside. When they followed him, they all stopped dead just past the doorway. Sumire was the only one who didn’t react with dread, but picked up on their unease and asked nervously, “What is it? What is this place?”

“It’s… It’s his room at his parents’ house, but…” Morgana began. There were a few posters haphazardly hung on the walls, a string of lights over a window that had nothing but darkness beyond...but no bed or dresser. Akira walked over to sit in one of the two chairs on either side of a bare table, the only furniture in the room, and propped his chin in his hand. Yusuke said quietly, “That’s...the table and chairs from his interrogation. I remember from when we checked the room...”

Goro swallowed hard. He wasn’t going to question Yusuke’s eye for detail. “Why is that here?”

“That was the first clue,” Akira said. “This isn’t where it started, but it was a pretty good indication. The plan was insane.”

“Where it started?” Goro questioned. There were so many things that could refer to. But that meant this wasn’t about the interrogation, to his great relief. The interrogation was a culmination of something else. “Your plan _was_ insane, though. Too many things could have gone wrong.”

“But he’s right. It was a success, so that’s the important part,” Makoto said.

“...I think we have different concepts of success,” Goro muttered, watching a piece of Akira’s mask chip off and reveal another bruise. Akira put it back without fanfare, and Goro paused. “Wait, he’s right?”

Makoto ignored him, pulling out the other chair and sitting down. “Akira, we’re here to help you. Won’t you tell us what’s wrong?”

Akira’s eyes widened at her new position. “Everything hurts. I’m tired, and no one notices,” he choked.

“Don’t say that!” Futaba cried, leaning over the table next to Makoto. “There’s obviously something wrong. You have to talk to us.”

“Futaba-senpai…” Sumire said, looking confused. “I don’t…”

“It was a terrible plan,” Akira said, and Goro felt his heart constrict at the tone of his voice, distracting him from trying to figure out why Futaba’s reaction seemed off. He’d never heard Akira sound so small. “I thought for sure they were going to kill me. I didn’t remember what I was supposed to do until the last minute. It was terrifying. As soon as I stopped feeling fuzzy, I was just afraid the whole time.”

“That’s right,” Makoto said reassuringly. “You handled everything really well, even with the circumstances outside of our control.”

“What?” Goro said blankly, but before he could try to ask a more specific question, Akira turned to Futaba and said, “You wanted me to be grateful for what everyone did, but you took my part for granted!” A crack split his mask practically in two, and he reached up with both hands to press the halves back together before it could break completely.

Futaba squeaked at the sudden move to catch the mask. “We _did_ do pretty good grabbing cognitive Akechi at the last minute!” she agreed. “It’s fine to be proud of the plan. You can take the mask off, seriously, ‘Kira.”

Ryuji groaned. “God, that was so stressful, though.” 

“We’re all proud of how well it went,” Yusuke chimed in. Akira, still holding the mask in place, made a quiet, wounded noise.

Goro felt himself scrambling to make sense of what he was hearing. “Stop, stop, stop, what are you saying?” he finally snarled, tired of this. “You’re not listening to him.” He looked around from one Thief to the next, exasperated. “He’s telling you he didn’t like your stupid plan.”

“...no he’s not,” Makoto said, puzzled. “He said that he was proud of how everything turned out. And that we did a good job catching all the last-minute details.”

“Wh—” He walked over to slam a gauntleted hand on the tabletop, making both Akira and Makoto jump. “He hasn’t said anything like that. He said he was scared, that you took him for granted!”

Futaba laughed nervously. “I’d ask if you can hear okay, but you don’t have that helmet anymore.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Goro turned to Akira. “Tell them what’s wrong, Akira.”

Akira looked up at him, and from under his mask, tears dripped down to hit the table. “They made the plan. They told me what my role was once it was all laid out. I couldn't say no; everyone was expecting me to pull this off...”

Something cold settled in the pit of Goro’s stomach. He hadn’t known. He’d just assumed that it was Akira’s grand plan. His eyes darted to Joker, leaned against the wall by the door, but the other piece of Akira just shook his head, and Goro saw red.

He pointed at Morgana. “What did you hear? What did Akira just say?”

“Uh…” Morgana stammered, surprised at being called out. “He… He said that he was proud that we pulled off the plan so well. That the team worked so well together.”

“Akechi, what are you—” Makoto tried.

“You,” Goro interrupted, pointing at Haru. “What did you hear?”

“The same as Mona-chan,” Haru replied. “Why are you acting so strange?”

Goro turned to Sumire, who was pale. “What about you?”

Sumire opened and closed her mouth a few times, then said haltingly, “He said that… that you all made the plan, not him. That he couldn’t say no…”

“What?” Yusuke said. “Why would he say that?”

“That’s what I heard as well,” Goro said. “Something is clearly wrong here, and I would bet that this is related to the mask he wears. Some of us,” and he looked around at everyone but Sumire, “are hearing the mask, not the truth.”

“But if that was true, why didn’t he ever say anything?” Makoto asked, slightly frantic. She turned back to Akira. “Why didn’t you tell us?”

“You needed me… There wasn’t another way…” Akira murmured.

Futaba looked up at Goro. “He said he didn’t want to worry us…?”

“He said that you needed him. That there wasn’t any other way,” Goro replied, and everyone wilted.

“He… He still could have said something was wrong… He could have said he didn’t think it was a good idea...” Ann murmured.

“We didn’t force him into doing the plan. We had to do _something_ or he was going to get shot!” Ryuji cried. “We weren’t the ones who forced the situation; _he was!”_

Goro bit his tongue when Ryuji gestured wildly at him. That wasn’t the point of this. They were here for Akira. “You can blame me all you like, but the conclusion is the same. He feels like he has to hide how he really feels.”

“But why?” Futaba said. “Why does he think we won’t help him if he says he’s having trouble?” She leaned towards him over the table. “Akira, we’re sorry, we didn’t know that you felt that way about the plan...”

Akira’s hands had started shaking. “I’m just glad I didn’t die…” he said.

The Thieves exchanged a look, and Goro raised an eyebrow. “What did you hear this time?”

“Nothing…” Haru whispered. “He didn’t say anything.”

A chunk of Akira’s mask fell to the table, but before he could pick it up, Goro caught his hand. “Don’t,” he said. “Why are you keeping this from them?”

Akira flinched. “I have to be the strong one,” he said. “They had their own problems to worry about. I was fine.”

“Transactional…” Goro murmured, glancing at Joker. Joker stared back, anticipation in his eyes, and he could only assume he was on the right track. He shifted his grip on Akira’s hand to lace their fingers together, and focused his attention on the other Thieves. “...you asked him for help with something, didn’t you?”

No one said anything, but they all looked uncomfortable. Goro smiled viciously. “All of you, hm? And in all of that time, did any of you ever ask how he was doing? This is the same issue we encountered in the last puzzle. Akira listening to everyone, and no one listening to him.”

More silence. All of them looked slightly frantic, clearly trying to remember, but it was Morgana who said slowly, “The others, too… I encouraged him… I encouraged him to make deals with people to get stuff to help the Phantom Thieves…”

“Others? Deals?” Goro asked.

Akira spoke up again then. “Takemi-sensei,” he said. “She gets me to help test her new drug, so that I can afford medicine for everyone. Iwai wanted help with his former yakuza contacts, so I could get deals for better guns. I was emotional support, so I could learn to be better with a gun. So I could learn to negotiate better with shadows. So I could develop better strategies. I did it for the team.”

It was clear that everyone had heard the same thing, that time, because they all looked horrified.

“You were doing _what_ ,” Makoto yelped. “Untested drugs? The _yakuza?_ Akira!”

“I’m our leader. I had to take responsibility…” Another piece of the mask fell, landing alongside the first, revealing more bruises and dark circles under his eyes, and Akira shied away from her.

Ryuji started to step forward, hesitated, then pushed onward anyway and put a hand on Makoto’s shoulder. “Hey, you prolly shouldn’t be sitting there.”

“Huh?” Makoto twisted around to face him, and he frowned.

“If this is sorta the interrogation room, sittin’ across from him and askin’ him all these questions is probably freaking him out.”

Makoto practically launched out of the chair. “Oh god, I didn’t… I didn’t even think… I’m so sorry, Akira…!”

Goro felt Akira’s grip on his hand loosen just a little. “So,” he said, running his thumb gently over Akira’s knuckles, “if I understand this correctly, I am the only person that ever invited him out simply to spend time with him. Is that right?”

“Hey!” Ryuji huffed, turning from Makoto to Goro. “You don’t get to accuse us of piling our shit on Akira and then pretend you’re so innocent. You were lookin’ for info about the Phantom Thieves!”

“Admittedly, that was my initial goal. It seemed interesting that he had such strong opinions on them,” Goro conceded. “But after the first time we met up, that goal was basically forgotten. We didn’t end up talking about the Phantom Thieves much at all. We talked about our families, the pressures of reputations, things like that. And one time we dueled in Mementos. But I never asked him to help me with my problems.” He paused. “If I had, things might be different now, but that’s a different issue.”

“...so what do we need to do?” Haru murmured after a long moment. “Akechi-kun is right...we put too much on him, on top of the things he was apparently doing to provide for us…”

None of them seemed to have an answer, and finally Futaba said, “I’m sorry… I should have checked on you. I… I know what it’s like to feel like no one is going to help you. You literally saved my life, and I just… I’m so sorry, ‘Kira. So please. Don’t hide this from us anymore. We’re not going to abandon you if you’re struggling.”

Akira looked up at them, and half the mask fell to the table, leaving him with just a chunk, like the phantom of the opera. His visible eye was wet with tears. “You all needed me to be strong for you.”

“We needed to be strong for you, too, and we weren’t!” Haru cried. “We shouldn’t have asked so much of you!”

“You’re our leader; we would all face anything to ensure the happiness of someone we hold so dear,” Yusuke said.

“...I should have seen that you were unsure about the plan. I’m so sorry, Akira,” Makoto murmured.

His hand was shaking, but Akira slowly reached up and pulled off the last piece of his mask. He set it gently on the table, then got up, still holding Goro’s hand. “Please…” he whispered. “Being alone...hurts. Morgana is great, but...”

“But it’s not the same as everyone,” Sumire said plaintively. “We should have been better about texting back, about checking in. We won’t let you be alone again anymore, senpai, we promise. We understand now.”

Akira smiled, shaky, and finally let go of Goro to scoop up the mask pieces and offer them to Joker. Once Joker had come forward to accept them, Akira looked around at everyone, one to the next until he was looking right at Goro. “I love you.”

Somehow, Goro managed to contain his reaction. Instead, he glanced at the Thieves. “What… What did you hear? Are we all on the same page?”

“He said ‘I’m glad you’re here,’” Morgana said, and the Thieves nodded, except for Sumire, who was looking at Goro oddly. Fortunately, no one noticed.

“Perfect,” Goro said, swallowing down anything else he might have wanted to say, and Akira’s smile only grew wider as he faded into light. Joker had assimilated the mask pieces, or whatever he did with the fragments that the Akiras left behind, and Goro pointed towards the door. “I think that’s enough for one day. We can come back tomorrow with fresh eyes, because I can only assume that our next target is that obnoxious shadow.”

“...I’m not picking up any other readings, either, so we’re going to need to hunt for him,” Futaba offered. “As much as I don’t wanna leave this another day, I agree with Akechi.”

“I think...we all have a lot to think about, as well,” Yusuke said. “It’s for the best to rest and process what we’ve learned.”

“Yeah…” Ryuji said, and the exhaustion in his voice was felt by everyone there. Even if it hadn’t been a physically taxing run through the Maze, they were emotionally wrecked after learning how badly Akira was hurting. So they used the nav to jump back to the entrance, and after bidding Joker farewell, they headed back to reality for the day.

Goro left the Thieves behind, intent on taking a walk by himself to clear his head, but he barely made it a block before he heard running footsteps behind him. When he turned to look, Sumire stopped a few feet away, her eyes wide.

“I… I’m sorry, if you want to be alone, I just… I was wondering if I could...walk with you?”

Goro hesitated, but Sumire was one of the more tolerable Thieves, and he conceded, “If you’d like.”

She was quiet for a while, as they roamed through the streets side-by-side. But Goro saw her take a deep breath out of the corner of his eye, and she began anxiously, “Akechi-senpai… Were you and Akira-senpai, um… Were you…”

“Not like you’re thinking,” he replied, not looking at her.

That knocked her for a loop. “What does that mean?”

Goro sighed. “We were together for perhaps twenty-four hours before the Palace came down and reality reverted itself. I...didn’t realize how he felt until the evening of the second. Or perhaps I knew all along, and was just denying it.”

He could see what she wanted to ask, and cut her off before she could stammer her way through it. “‘I’m glad you’re here’ was the last thing he said to me that night, before we fell asleep. I understand now what he was actually saying.” He looked over at last, meeting her eyes. “I would appreciate it if you didn’t tell the others about this yet, although Kitagawa might already know. I’m not even sure why you heard that, or why you are so adept at seeing through his mask.”

“...I think it’s because I wasn’t a phantom thief,” Sumire said thoughtfully. “I never really saw him putting on his mask as leader until the very end. And he was...normal around me. He asked me to teach him gymnastics techniques, and in return, he listened to my worries. But I never asked him to be more than a sounding board, or to go somewhere… That was probably still bad, though!”

“Relax,” Goro huffed. “It’s a distortion. Nothing individually was as bad as his warped perception is making it. So long as we are all more mindful in the future, it should be fine.”

“I think Morgana is really upset,” Sumire said. “I heard Ann-senpai comforting him before I left.”

“Morgana is the bossiest cat I have ever encountered,” Goro said. “He _should_ feel bad for not realizing there was a problem sooner.”

_He_ should have been here, and then maybe Akira wouldn’t be like this. But Sumire didn’t call him out on his hypocrisy, just said quietly, “I won’t tell anyone, senpai. It’s not my place. But… Do you… Love him back?”

Abruptly, Goro remembered once again that Sumire had also had feelings for their leader, and he found himself mildly impressed by how well she was handling this. “...yes, I do.”

She beamed at him, radiant, and for just a moment it reminded him of Akira. “Good,” she said. “When we get him back, I’m rooting for you!”

Goro wanted to be sarcastic, but before he got the chance, her eyes drifted somewhere behind him, and he watched as her eyebrows shot upwards in surprise. “What is it?”

“Isn’t that the mural building?” she asked, pointing, and he turned to look. It was. Right there on the corner of the street, the official-looking building stood tall and ominous. There was no mural on the side in reality, but the sign in front indicated that it was the town courthouse, and several things clicked at once.

“I think I know where we’re going to find the so-called King of Hearts,” Goro said, and Sumire’s eyes widened.

Whatever was waiting for them in that cognitive courthouse tomorrow… it was going to be bad.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've said my piece about the Plan more than once, but a detail that I only really noticed after playing Royal was that after Yusuke makes his comment about, "I bet he was so cocky, sitting alone in that quiet chamber", you're given a choice of dialogue options.
> 
> One of those options is, "I'm just glad I didn't die."
> 
> If you choose it, no one acknowledges it in any way. The conversation simply moves on.
> 
> And...that upset me, to put it mildly. Hence, this puzzle.


	7. Chapter 7

Somehow, despite everything they had learned, Goro actually slept well. They were making progress, and he and Sumire had found a solid lead for where the next piece was hiding. So the next day, when they reassembled, he was well-rested and prepared to lead the team back to the courthouse.

Before they went inside, Goro went to check the mural. The sections representing the Akiras they’d already seen were in color now, and The Fool’s mural had more colored spots. It was reassuring to know that they were halfway there, but from how Joker had spoken, the worst was yet to come. The broken silhouette was still ominous, and while they’d seen Shadow Joker, none of them were sure what he was capable of.

There was no time to waste wondering and fretting, though. Goro took them through the front doors, past the dimly lit antechamber and into the courtroom itself.

It was normal-looking, all things considered. Dark paneling, high ceilings, rows of chairs for those there to observe the trial. But Shadow Joker was the one waiting for them on the judge’s bench, and oh, it made sense now, the moniker of ‘King of Hearts’, as he lorded over his court with a wide slash of a smile. And, more concerning, there was another Akira laid out on a wide platform, eyes closed and face peaceful.

“What piece is that?” Ryuji asked. “There’s only three left, right? Is that the broken one or the...what was the other one? The World?”

At Goro’s side, Joker had gone so ashen-pale that he could be a twin to the mad king above them. “It’s neither…” he breathed, golden eyes wide. “That’s the real one.”

Everyone was silent for a moment, and then Goro turned to him. “That’s _what?_ ” he demanded. “You said the real one was safe!”

“He was!” Joker insisted, but there was a slight edge of panic in his expression.

Shadow Joker smirked. “Oh, come _on_ , Arsène. I am as much of a thief as you; did you really think I wouldn’t find him eventually? I _can_ go in the safe rooms, you know. And I know all about the back room of the jazz club~” He winked. “Brave of you, stashing him that close to the temple, but ultimately pointless. How can we have a trial without the defendant, after all?”

“Wh… That doesn’t make sense!” Makoto objected. “Why is he on trial? He hasn’t done anything wrong!”

“If that’s what you think, I suppose you should be the ones to defend him, since he obviously can’t defend himself right now,” Shadow Joker said with a sharp smile. “Akira Kurusu is a liar, a charlatan, a shadow of himself. He trusts no one and refuses to be honest. Do you think you can counter these accusations?”

“Of course we can!” Morgana shouted.

“Such confidence! I do hope you’re up to the task,” the shadow said. “Otherwise… _out with his heart_.”

Goro walked up to the defense’s bench, Morgana at his side. There wasn’t room for the others to crowd into the bench itself, but they formed a united front as close as they could get, all prepared to face down the mocking reflection of their leader. It was taking every bit of Goro’s restraint to keep from trying to get to the real Akira. He wasn’t supposed to be like that, helpless and limp. His fire should be in his eyes, not manifested into a doppelganger that meant him harm.

“The prosecution begins, I believe,” he said coldly, and the shadow laughed, kicking his feet up onto the rail in front of him and leaning back in his chair.

“Very well.” He gestured to the unconscious boy laying below. “Akira Kurusu stands accused of deception of the highest order. He’s spent all this time pretending to be so strong, acting like a competent leader when really at heart he is nothing but a weak failure.” There was nothing but dismissal and cruelty in his voice, and it shocked the Thieves to hear a piece of Akira speaking so harshly of himself. “He lied about the interrogation, to make you all think he was stronger than he was.”

“Lied?” Sumire murmured. “He seemed...tense, when I saw him, but other than that…”

“But he was strong,” Haru said. “He made it through, and everything went perfectly.”

Futaba looked at the floor. “...is that strength, though? Think about what we weren’t hearing yesterday. He was afraid he was going to die.”

“Isn’t there a quote that says true courage is being afraid, but pushing forward anyway?” Yusuke asked.

“He acted like everything was fine afterwards, once it was over and he knew he’d be okay,” Ryuji said. “Or is it just that we didn’t see that it was still bothering him?”

Shadow Joker cackled. “He willfully deceived you. Don’t fool yourselves. Makeup, painkillers, being aware of every movement so that he could pretend he wasn’t still hurting from his injuries… It’s a wonder he didn’t collapse between the interrogation and election day. One of you knows, don’t you?”

Morgana flinched. “I saw him with the makeup, but I didn’t think… I thought he was just doing it to avoid looking suspicious when he went out!”

“And when he was around you all,” Shadow Joker added. “Think about it… How did he look the next day, after being beaten to hell and back?”

Ann frowned. “He… He didn’t have any bruises. He didn’t look bad at all. Are you saying…?”

The shadow grinned. “ _Exactly_. It was all lies. He was pretending the whole time so he could look like the big, impressive leader… Imagine what would have happened if those injuries had caught up to him on the Ship! His ego would have gotten you all killed!”

“That’s bullshit!” Ryuji yelled. “We’ve figured out all of these stupid puzzles already; we get it! He thought he had to be strong for us. He felt like he couldn’t tell us anything was wrong. If that’s all the evidence you got, that’s definitely not enough.”

There was something menacing in the way the shadow moved, more than their Joker had ever been, as he abandoned his chair to prowl closer to the floor. “That’s not all,” he said, the words like a knife. “Your dear leader’s crimes are far worse than just that. If it was as simple as that, we wouldn’t even need a trial.” He came to a stop alongside the real Akira, fingers oddly gentle in contrast to his tone as they brushed the sleeping boy’s curls back from his forehead. “You’ve seen what else is in this place, right? His inability to move on, the way he clings to the past, and to all of you? It’s pathetic. We defeated two gods, _killed one_ , and a few missed phone calls and unanswered texts were enough to break us.”

“You know as well as I what we were told,” Joker said, and Goro could see him practically vibrating with tension as the shadow petted the real one. “A Wild Card draws their strength from their bonds, and if those bonds are severed…”

“And why shouldn't they have been severed? We’ve done all we could, and now we aren’t needed anymore,” Shadow Joker taunted. “Their problems are solved, they have futures and they’re moving on, choosing new schools and new apartments and new career paths. And what was our reward? Going back to a pointless life where we no longer matter, now that our job is done. And instead of accepting his fate, he crumbled to pieces and dragged all of them out here to deal with our failures because he was too weak to.”

“That’s not it at all!” Haru cried. “We came because we were worried! Akira-kun… Akira-kun deserves good things more than anyone! He saved everyone over and over and never took anything for himself...”

The shadow hummed, skimming his fingertips along Akira’s jaw and throat. “You say that, but you don’t know the worst of his crimes. Does he deserve anything, when he was almost prepared to throw away the world for his own selfish whims?”

“What the fuck does that mean?” Goro felt as wound-up as Joker did, and it was getting worse the longer he had to watch the shadow lay hands on Akira. It would make no sense for a piece of Akira to want to hurt him, but there was still a lingering ill feeling that Goro could finally name as _fear_. Fear that Akira would do something to himself that couldn’t be taken back before they could help him. “Spit it out, if you have more evidence.”

Shadow Joker tapped Akira’s chest, just where his heart would be. “Twice he was offered something he wanted, in exchange for everyone and everything else. And both times, he wanted to accept, and only the presence of someone else stopped him from seriously considering taking the deal. His facade of determination hides that he’s incredibly selfish at heart.”

“Wh-What?” Makoto began.

“What are you saying?” Yusuke demanded.

“He didn’t tell you~” Shadow Joker hummed. “Yaldabaoth offered him a deal. All of you, alive and well, and the city safe and unblemished by Mementos, but Yaldabaoth would still be permitted to rule from beneath public consciousness. If Lavenza hadn’t been there to bolster his defiance, he may have let the god have the world, just because he couldn’t handle rebellion without his friends at his back.”

“He was _grieving_ ,” Goro snarled. “If I know anything about Akira, it’s that if he thought all of his friends were dead, of _course_ he would hesitate, because he’s a ridiculous bleeding-heart.”

“...yes,” the shadow purred. “You would know.”

Sumire wrung her hands together, looking between Goro and Shadow Joker. “You said… You said he almost gave up the world twice. What was the second time?” she asked tentatively.

The shadow smirked. “Do you want to tell them, honey, or should I?”

Goro cursed the claws preventing him from clenching his fists any tighter. There was no way out of this now. “Maruki… The last night before the battle, when Akira handed over the calling card, Maruki attempted to bait him into staying in the distorted reality by threatening his wish. And there was certainly part of Akira that wanted to accept, because as I said, he’s a bleeding-heart.”

“He didn’t have a wish, though,” Ryuji said. “He knew what was goin’ on from the start.”

“Oh, he had a wish~” the shadow teased. “He just didn’t recognize it until Maruki pointed it out.”

“...how do you know that, Akechi-kun?” Makoto asked. “What Maruki offered?”

“He was there,” Morgana said quietly. “He came to make sure Maruki wasn’t going to try anything.”

Goro swallowed hard. It shouldn’t be so difficult to force the words out. But admitting anything to these idiots was a challenge, especially something as personal as this.

“What was Akira’s wish, then?” Ann asked. “What could have made him hesitate at the last second?”

Yusuke and Sumire were staring at Goro, but he just couldn’t make himself speak. He couldn’t say it. He still barely believed it himself. That night felt like a fever-dream, a fluke, something as unreal as the reality they’d left behind, despite what he’d told Sumire yesterday.

But what else could he do?

“...me,” he said after a long moment, well-aware of the shadow’s eyes fixed on him. “His wish was me. That he was able to save me after the Ship. Maruki implied that my life was tied to the dream world, that I would be dead in our proper reality. Surely you assumed as much as well, when I wasn’t there after reality reverted.”

“That’s right!” Shadow Joker chimed, gleeful. “After breaking everyone else’s wishes, after forcing you to give up _your_ loved ones that had returned from the dead, _your_ happiness, he wanted to throw it all away because something _he_ cared about was threatened! No wonder he never said anything. It makes him look terrible, and we can’t have that in our brave leader, can we?” But then his eyes narrowed, and he circled the platform Akira was lying on to make his way closer to them. “That’s not the whole truth, though, is it? _Why_ was he so broken up over the fact that you might die?”

“Because that’s just how he is,” Goro hissed through gritted teeth. “He’s a self-sacrificing idiot that wants to save everyone. He risked his neck to keep that fucking madman from falling to his death, after all.”

Red-gloved fingers against his lips did nothing to hide the wicked smirk crawling across the shadow’s face. “Perjury is a crime, honey. I expected better from a detective of your caliber.”

“It’s not a lie, you—!” Goro cut himself off before he could say something he regretted.

“Half a truth is a lie in court,” Shadow Joker said primly. “If his defense is going to perpetuate his hiding of the truth, that means the charges are valid. We may as well declare him guilty right now and get this over with.”

“Goro-senpai, please!” Sumire said. “Just say it!”

Goro bit his tongue. “Because he was stupid enough to fall in love with someone like me,” he snapped. “And stupid enough to hide it until the last moment. Is that what you wanted to hear?”

“That will do~”

“He was _what?_ What the heck?” Ryuji yelped. All of the Thieves, save Yusuke and Sumire, looked at least a little caught off-guard.

“I… I had no idea…” Haru murmured.

“...that explains a few things,” Futaba said.

“Do you understand now?” the shadow asked, still smirking. “He was willing to throw away the world because he was foolish enough to fall in love with his murderer. How utterly selfish. And he kept it a secret! Do you know how long he’s had feelings for Goro? Long before November, and even after everything that happened, they didn’t go away. The only reason we’re not all trapped in a delusion right now is because it went against _Goro’s_ wishes. If he hadn’t been there…too bad for everyone else! What _we_ want takes precedence!”

_“Shut up!”_ Goro shouted. He was almost prepared to leap the rail and launch himself at the shadow. “What the fuck do you know? You’re just a distortion! What does forcing me to reveal this accomplish? It was none of their business; his feelings didn’t affect anyone’s plans. Of course he would fucking hide how he felt, considering the situation we were trapped in. And in the end… I understand now! I get why he would hesitate, and I forgave him for it! So there’s no reason for you to be trying to use it to condemn him!”

The silence was so loud in the aftermath of his outburst that the room was practically ringing with it. But then Ann spoke up as well, chiming in, “And are you really trying to guilt yourself over something you didn’t actually do? All of us probably thought about doing stupid, selfish things! By your argument, I’m guilty, too. I thought about killing Kamoshida’s shadow! And if I had been on my own and hadn’t met the team beforehand, I might have done it on impulse. So if you’re going to punish Akira based on that, you have to punish me, too.”

“Akira forgave me when I abandoned the Thieves over a stupid fight,” Morgana said.

“He forgave me for getting us caught by Makoto,” Ryuji said.

“He forgave me for blackmailing everyone…” Makoto acknowledged.

“He forgave _all of us_ for giving in to some happy dream and leaving him alone,” Futaba cried. “So he has to forgive himself, too, because we’ve done a lot worse!”

The shadow, finally, was quiet at that. Goro took the opportunity to leave the bench and meet him in the middle, stopping just a foot away and meeting his eyes. “If you can forgive _me_ for everything I did to you and your friends, to the point that you still _love_ me, then you can forgive yourself for having moments of weakness. If you can’t do that...you may as well give up, and I know that you’re not the sort to give up.”

Joker stepped up just behind Goro. “If you truly wanted to condemn us, you wouldn’t have done this,” he said. “You would have taken our real self to the temple and let our anger and pain destroy us.”

“You think you’re so smart, better half,” Shadow Joker huffed. But he was looking at Goro, not his counterpart. “Forgiving myself is so much harder. But you know that, don’t you?”

“Of course,” Goro said. “But there’s really no other options. You put yourself on trial and we rejected all charges. You threw yourself to our mercy, and mercy is what we offered. Are you going to turn that down?”

The shadow didn’t respond, and Goro added, “Also, consider the fact that the moment any of us realized something was wrong, we rushed here to help. I dropped _everything_ to make sure that you were all right.”

“...I should have kept believing in you, huh?” Shadow Joker snorted. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a calling card, holding it up between two fingers before offering it to Goro. “Good job talking me down, honey, but… I just hope you can stand up to our anger. Because at this point, that’s all that’s left. And I wasn’t going to hurt him, not for real, but I don’t know what that piece will do.”

“You should be angry,” Goro said. “We screwed up. And if you want to be angry at me, I’ll deal with it, if it means I can help you.”

Shadow Joker grinned. “You really are the hero, aren’t you?”

Before Goro could respond, he was gone, dissolving like the others, and Goro flipped over the calling card to read it instead.

_Sir Akira Kurusu, rebellious thief of hearts,_

_For too long you have hidden your true feelings under masks and false strength._

_This masquerade has brought you to the brink of self-harm and surrender._

_So I shall expose your distorted feelings without fail._

_This I swear, as the King of Hearts._

“Is this really the only way he thought like he could admit how he felt? Berating himself for some perceived weakness?” Yusuke murmured.

“It can be really hard to explain why things hurt,” Futaba said. “Letting his self-esteem issues literally accuse him of all of his apparent failures might have been easier than admitting out loud that he was struggling.”

Goro wordlessly handed Joker the calling card and, without even waiting to be sure that it was the object they were looking for, headed right for Akira. He hadn’t stirred, even with all the shouting and the shadow touching him, and Goro hesitated before pressing a gentle hand to his face. “You idiot…” he mumbled. “You idiot… I’m sorry. I was trying to get my own shit together, but I shouldn’t have abandoned you like that. I should have been paying attention.”

“Goro-senpai,” Sumire called softly, and when he turned around he found all the Thieves staring at him.

“What?” he snapped.

“You, uh…” Makoto attempted, but trailed off.

It was Ann who finally bit the bullet. “You love him back, don’t you?” she asked. “Why didn’t you ever say anything?”

“What was I supposed to say?” Goro sighed, redirecting his focus back to Akira. Now that they’d found the real one, he barely wanted to let him out of his sight. “At the time, it was useless. I was so far in denial that the feeling barely registered. I had a plan to complete and no room to get attached. And then I was trapped in a sinking ship after recognizing that my entire plan was nothing but a waste, and all I could do was ensure that the lot of you got out alive.” He slipped his hand into Akira’s, hoping that maybe he would react, but Akira remained limp. “And after my miraculous return, well… It didn’t take me long to puzzle out that my appearance in Maruki’s reality might be the same as Wakaba Isshiki and President Okumura. I certainly wasn’t going to admit my feelings when my presumed fate was ultimately to disappear. And I didn’t dare presume that he felt the same way.” The words were coming easier and easier the longer he spoke. “But that was ultimately pointless, because that night, Akira had a breakdown. He’d felt the same way all along, if not longer, and apparently the idea of experiencing my death a second time was the last straw.”

“And after everything was over, you just...what, left him?” Ryuji said. “Dude, what the hell.”

Goro scowled. “I promised him that I would come back. I left my glove with him, not that you would understand the significance of that. And I _don’t_ want to hear that from any of you, because you did the same goddamn thing. I refuse to take all the blame when this is a collective failing.”

Without waiting for a response, he carefully gathered Akira into his arms and turned to Joker. “We should go back to a safe room. Whatever is left can’t get in now, can it?”

“Right,” Joker said. The calling card had since vanished, and he tapped his foot thoughtfully for a moment. “...the attic would probably serve us best. You sound like you have something to ask.”

“Very observant,” Goro said dryly. “Let’s go, then. Someone else will have to do the nav; I’m a bit occupied.”

It took a little while to make their way back to a spot where they could use the nav to jump safely. Goro spent most of it focused on Akira, keeping him safely cradled against his shoulder and ignoring the searching looks that the Thieves kept throwing at him. Most of them were completely blindsided by the revelation that all of this had gone down and Akira had given no indications during the fight with Maruki or after. Even once he got out of jail, he barely mentioned Goro at all. Now they understood why.

What kind of hell must it have been, waiting for him to come back but not knowing if he would?

The attic was quiet, calm. False sunlight filtered through the window, illuminating dust motes and giving the illusion of warmth. The Thieves scattered around, pulling up chairs and finding space to sit, and Goro busied himself taking off his gauntlets and tucking Akira into bed. Pulling up the sheet allowed him to pretend, just a little, that this was a normal sleep. What an idiot, dozing off during a meeting.

Goro’s idiot.

He stayed perched on the edge of the bed, running his fingers through Akira’s hair and cutting his eyes at Joker, who had settled himself on the work desk, kicking his feet. “Are we ready?”

“I think so,” Makoto said. “We all have questions, if you’re willing to answer, Joker.”

Joker tilted his head. “Of course I’m willing to answer. I want our real self safely out of this just as much as you.”

Despite having questions, they were all quiet, contemplating wording. Haru ended up speaking first. “You and the shadow Joker both mentioned a temple… And implied that being there would be dangerous for Akira-kun. What is it?”

“The Grail’s temple,” Joker said immediately. “That’s where the last active piece is. But he’s locked in; I have the key to the temple.”

“Active?” Yusuke questioned.

Joker nodded. “Satanael is here, but he’s weak because of how fragmented our heart is. He won’t put up a fight. He’s like me; he wants Akira to be safe. To find him, we will have to climb the tower, which we can’t get to until you get past the Godslayer.”

The title gave them all pause, because it sounded...violent, in comparison to everything they’d seen before. Even Shadow Joker’s cruel mockery was only that. Mockery. Goro glanced down at Akira, who still slept dreamlessly, and murmured, “That’s why you don’t want the real one anywhere near the temple. This is Akira’s world. That makes him its god, right?”

“Correct as always,” Joker said, but his smile was brittle. “Our heart fragmenting to pieces means that his rage and pain went unchecked, and has distorted out of control. We killed a god to save the world, and faced down another for the same reason. It’s not difficult to imagine destroying another, if it means that it will stop everything from hurting so badly.”

Ann made a muffled, distressed noise, but before she could speak, Joker said firmly, “Akira is not suicidal. He’s distorted and in pain, and I trust with every bit of his heart that I possess that all of you can help him.”

Futaba, occupying the couch with her arms around her knees, said in a faux-cheerful tone, “Well, we definitely can’t take him with us for this fight, then. Carrying him right to the thing that might kill him sounds like a terrible idea.”

“But is it safe to leave him here?” Sumire fretted. “I know it’s a safe room, but…”

Makoto frowned. “Joker, can we ask you to stay here with him? I get the impression that you can’t help us fight the…” She hesitated. “...Godslayer.”

Joker nodded. “All I can really offer is advice. If I were to act directly, it would probably just make things worse. Akira isn’t in a mental state where he can take his own advice, you know? Otherwise this wouldn’t have happened.” He got up from the desk, pulling out a battered iron key and holding it out. “Nothing else should be able to enter this safe room, but I will defend our real self with my life.”

Makoto came forward to accept the key. “Then we’ll deal with what’s waiting in the temple and come back. And then we can go to the tower together.” She looked over at Goro, who hadn’t moved, completely focused on Akira, and more quietly said, “Akechi-kun?”

“I’m coming. Don’t… Don’t act like I can’t handle this, now that you all know.” He pushed himself to his feet, retrieving his clawed gauntlets. “Whatever is in that temple, it can go down just as easily as the rest have.”

It was a poor attempt to hide how worried he was, but none of them called him on it as he headed for the stairs. Whatever their personal feelings were about everything that had been revealed, it was something to be dealt with after Akira was safe. For now, they had to focus on the challenge ahead, and they followed Goro with single-minded determination.

Joker watched them go, gold eyes bright behind his mask. “I know you can save us, Phantom Thieves... Come back safely.”


	8. Chapter 8

Even though there was no signal that Futaba could pick up, once they were looking for it, the Holy Grail’s temple was an obvious landmark on the horizon. Before, it had blended into the sea of out-of-place architecture, but now, it was like a beacon. So they pressed forward, forcing their way through the twisting streets, refusing to let anything stop them until they reached the massive, arched gate to the temple.

The key that Joker had given them opened a metal cage on the outside wall, which gave access to a lever that opened the portcullis blocking their way.

Goro and Sumire started forward, only to stop again when they realized everyone else was hesitating. The other Thieves were looking up at the gate with a wide range of uncomfortable expressions, and Goro leaned an impatient hand on his hip. “What?”

“This is...where the god was,” Yusuke said. “In the end, before it revealed that it was the size of a skyscraper.”

“It was something I don’t think any of us will ever forget,” Haru murmured. “It’s just a bit strange to be back here.”

“I can’t imagine…” Sumire said. “But Akira-senpai needs us, and he obviously sees this place as representing some kind of ending. We have to keep going!”

Goro said nothing; Sumire had been nicer about it than he would have. This wasn’t the time to get caught up in memories. So as soon as he was sure the others had snapped out of their nostalgia trip, he turned on his heel to head further into the temple.

He’d been expecting a chance to finally see the Holy Grail, even if it was just from Akira’s memories. But he ended up slightly disappointed, as the inside of the temple instead contained a near-perfect replica of Maruki’s model Eden, minus the frolicking cognitions. It was simply a massive, empty garden, drenched in sunlight and color and practically glittering with life. 

And there was no sign of anything that looked like Akira.

“We need to fan out and search,” Goro said, trying to maintain his role as leader even in the absence of Joker. “Watch your backs; make sure not to get ambushed. Sakamoto, keep an eye on the gate to make sure that whatever is here doesn’t get past us. If it escapes into the city, we will never find it, and Akira will be in danger.”

Normally Ryuji would argue against doing anything Goro told him to, but Akira’s life being in jeopardy was enough to get him to comply. He took up a position in the gateway, while the others roamed through the garden, always keeping an eye on each other as they looked for any sign of the fearsome Godslayer that was enough to make Arsène wary.

It was Morgana who saw it first, the odd movement of a shadow out of the corner of his eye. Nothing substantial, just a half-glimpse of a dark figure slinking through the trees and around the edges of the area, darker than any shadow had a right to be in such a well-lit place. “Uh...guys?”

“What is it, Mona-chan?” Haru called.

“There’s...something here. Some sort of shadow,” Morgana said. “I keep just barely seeing it.”

Makoto frowned. “What kind of shadow?” she asked.

“I don’t know. It’s shaped like a human, at least.”

“It has felt like something is watching us…” Ann admitted. “But I haven’t seen anything.”

“...regroup,” Goro ordered. “If something’s here, we can’t be scattered.”

But as they moved in to put the exit at their backs, there was a sudden blast of fire from somewhere to one side, and Ann reacted immediately, flinging herself in front of Yusuke to block the worst of it. They bunched together, scanning the room frantically, and Goro felt the air shift and lunged to wrap himself around Sumire before a maeigaon that came flying from nowhere could land.

“Kitagawa,” he barked, as soon as the spell settled, “take Yoshizawa and take cover. He’s clearly got fire and curse magic; you two are susceptible. Go!”

Yusuke obeyed immediately, ducking into the archway with Sumire in tow. The rest of them kept looking for the source of the spells, and finally Ryuji pointed, “There!”

There was a shadow being cast on one of the temple walls, with no apparent source. But as they watched, it blinked open glowing, furious red eyes, almost peeling itself off the wall as it started advancing towards them. It was humanoid in shape, and now that they could get a better look, it clearly had Akira’s nest of fluffy hair.

“Wh-What the hell is that?” Morgana blurted.

“Akira…?” Goro called, hand straying towards his sword. None of the others had seemed hostile, but this one… This one felt dangerous.

**_“Why are you here?”_** the shadow demanded. **_“In my sanctuary?”_**

“Sanctuary? Here?” Haru gasped. “But this is… This is just… We nearly died in these places!”

**_“What do you care? Don’t pretend you give a damn now!”_ **

It made sense, once Goro took two seconds to think about it. Of course the Godslayer would create his sanctuary in the empty halls of the gods he had defeated. But there was no time to consider the meaning any deeper, because the situation was quickly spiralling out of control.

“Akira, stop!” Makoto shouted. “We’re here to help! We made a mistake!”

Enraged, the Godslayer surged forward. **_“You sent me to die!”_** He ducked low, and all of them stumbled back as he lashed out with one foot, wearing the silhouette of one of Arsène’s bladed heels. He nearly clipped Makoto’s scarf with the sharp edge as she dodged back, but he didn’t stay still long enough for any of them to react, darting back and lifting a hand to call down swords dance.

Ryuji jumped in to take the brunt of the hit, doubling over but not going down as the others took up defensive stances. No one was sure what to do; they didn’t want to fight Akira, but none of the other pieces had lashed out like this either. Ann went to work healing Ryuji, but while Makoto tried to buff everyone’s defense, the shadow wasn’t giving them pause.

**_“Nothing to say? Or can you not think of anything that isn’t dismissive?”_** He drew a gun with an oddly-familiar shape, pointing it at them and firing wildly into the group. Futaba shrieked from inside Al Azif, throwing up a guard to block the shots, which just seemed to make the shadow angrier. **_“You didn’t make any kind of backup plan! I had to succeed or die! There were no second chances! None of YOU were coming to save me! You just used me as the lynchpin of your grand scheme, and to hell with the consequences!”_**

They knew he felt like this, after interacting with the last piece, but the battered Akira from the interrogation room hadn’t been angry. Just sad and resigned. Apparently all of his anger was here. And no one wanted to be the first to throw a spell at their leader. Even enraged and lashing out, this shadow was still Akira, but other than playing defense, no one knew what to do or how to calm him down. 

From the Godslayer’s back, wings spread wide. Six of them, Satanael’s wings to match Arsène’s shoes in representing the core parts of Akira’s heart. He leaped into the air, brandishing what they now recognized as Satanael’s gun, and the ground split open under the force of gigantomachia, throwing them all off-balance and leaving them struggling to stay on their feet.

“Akira, you have to stop this!” Goro insisted. “We all screwed up, but we’re here now! This is what you wanted, right?”

The shadow dipped closer, and now Goro could see that his red eyes weren’t just filled with anger. There was pain, too. **_“You told me that not fighting was a betrayal of your wishes. Why were YOUR wishes the only ones that mattered?! I wanted to be happy! You promised me! And then you abandoned me!”_** Fire blazed around the edges of the room, turning the temple interior into an inferno, and Goro was barely aware of Makoto in the background telling Morgana to stand by for healing, because wind spells would just make it worse. At least Yusuke and Sumire were safely out of the way, but now they were cut off.

“I was selfish!” Goro shouted. “You’re right! I admonished you for putting your wants above everyone else’s, and then I focused only on my own. I should have done things differently; I should have come back sooner! But I’m here now! I didn’t abandon you!”

**_“You’re too late!”_** There were tear tracks running down the Godslayer’s face, but Goro only got a glimpse for a moment before he was moving, dodging attacks from the other Thieves, who were trying to at least ground him long enough to stop him from lashing out. **_“All the people I thought I could trust have done nothing but cause me pain! I just want it to stop!”_**

He opened his mouth, then, but what came out was something completely incomprehensible. For a second, Goro didn’t realize what was happening, but then an overwhelming despair engulfed him, and he staggered. Faintly he heard Haru scrambling to cast amrita shower, but he didn’t know if he was out of range, because the voices didn’t let up.

_............................. —hurts, it **hurts,** make it stop, make it sto—_

  
_no one needs me anymore_ ......................................

................  
_pointless... waste of space..._  


_Help, help, help_

_everyone just wants to manipulate me… use me..._

_they don’t **care**_

................................. _alone_

_why am I so **weak**_

  
_  
**WHY**  
_

  
...................... _why should someone unwanted..._  


  
_...continue to live?_  


............. _I don’t matter…_

  
__  
**just end it**  
  


Goro choked on the feelings, his mouth going dry. This was how Akira’s rage and pain felt? He almost wanted to laugh through the crushing despair, because it all felt so familiar. At this rate, it wasn’t going to be the despair that killed him, it was going to be the idea that Akira felt just like he used to, and it was partially his fault.

That was intolerable.

“Akira…” he croaked, mustering the willpower to force himself upright. “I get it… I understand… This is our fault...”

“Akechi?!” someone yelped from behind him.

**“Did Akechi just shrug off despair on his own?”** Futaba cried from inside her persona.

“I know what it feels like…” Goro said, gritting his teeth, and his words got stronger the more he spoke. The crushing feeling of anguish was fading little by little as he held himself up, facing the shadow. “I felt like that...every day...for _years_. And it wasn’t enough...to break me. So this won’t either!”

He took a wavering step towards the Godslayer, whose red eyes went wide. As Haru finished curing the other Thieves of their despair, the shadow focused entirely on Goro, and as Goro took another step forward, he howled, **_“Stop! Don’t come any closer! Don’t pretend to care now!”_**

He cast eigaon directly at Goro, but Goro just shrugged it off and kept advancing. Over and over, spell after spell, fire and curse magic thrown straight into his face, but Goro kept pushing forward. To the Thieves, he appeared as little more than a silhouette against the glow of the spells, a matched pair to the shadow.

Goro felt his mask disappear, felt Hereward try to give him just a little bit more protection. He knew the fire was going to get to him eventually. He could withstand it for now, but not forever. But there was no time to worry about that. He could only force his way forward through the blaze of magic, closer to the shadow with every step.

“You’re angry,” he called to him. “And you’re hurting. You’re hurting so badly that you want to destroy everything.” He gestured to the garden, now an inferno. “If you want to be angry with me, go ahead! If you need a target to keep you from destroying yourself, fine! If that’s what it takes to get you out of here, _so be it_!”

**_“You’re just going to leave again!”_** The Godslayer reached up to pull at his own hair, wings drooping and bringing him closer to the ground. **_“You always have a reason to leave me… Why should this be any different?!”_**

“Because I promised you!” Goro shouted. “I promised you that I would come back, by my own will, and here I am! I’m not going anywhere, Akira!” One final push forward, and he was able to reach up and grab the shadow, drawing him down into his arms.

The Godslayer screamed wordlessly, twisting and struggling against Goro’s grip. But Goro held tightly, refusing to let go, and eventually the scream shuddered into a wailing sob, and he latched onto Goro, burying his face against his shoulder.

Slowly, the inky darkness began to drip away, leaving a distraught, shaking Akira wearing his winter coat from January. Goro just held him tighter, leaning their heads together. “I’m here, Akira. I’m here. I came back. And I’m not leaving again.”

The fires began to die down, leaving the replica of Eden scorched and ruined. With the way clear, the other Thieves hurried forward as well, frantically trying to see if they were all right.

“Holy shit, Akechi, that was _badass_ ,” Futaba cried.

“He was literally walking through fire!” Ryuji blurted.

“Akira, are you all right?” Makoto asked anxiously.

Akira shuddered violently, holding handfuls of Goro’s cape in a white-knuckled grip. “Please…” he begged. “I know you don’t need me anymore, but please don’t leave. Please.”

“We’re not leaving you!” Ann exclaimed. She carefully stepped forward to press a hand to his back. “We should have been there. We shouldn’t have let you go back to your parents at all.”

Gradually they all crowded around, though Goro still held him the closest. “You’re coming home after this,” Futaba insisted. “Your room is still there, and your place is with us, always!”

“I just don’t want to be betrayed again…” Akira said weakly. “I can’t… Not again…”

“You won’t be,” Goro said. “If anyone hurts you like that again, I’ll kill them. You should have let that asshole fall off that bridge.”

“Akechi!” Makoto said sharply, but Akira was laughing, softly and muffled against Goro’s neck.

“I should have,” he mumbled. “What’s good for one god is good for another. But it's too late now…”

Goro squeezed him. “Still alive or not, he’s not coming near you ever again. Things are going to be better from now on. I promise. We’ll… We’ll take those stupid dance lessons you wanted, and we’ll play billiards until you manage to beat me with my left hand, and we’ll do all of the vapid, normal things that we couldn’t before.”

It was like a physical pain now, thinking back to every time Akira had suggested something, some sort of activity that implied Goro would still be around to participate. Not realizing at the time that it wasn’t as simple as _‘we should go do something fun when this is all over’_ , but was really, _‘I still want you here with me, when this is all over.’_

Gradually, Akira stopped shaking, and his grip loosened. When he finally straightened up and pulled away, reaching out, all of the Thieves were there to meet him, one big cluster of hands joining in a tangle. 

“We’re so sorry,” Haru murmured.

“We cannot apologize enough,” Yusuke added. “Disregarding your pain like that… What Akechi said was correct; be angry with us, if you must, but don’t hurt yourself in the pursuit of relief.”

Akira ducked his head. “I just couldn’t take anymore. It was too much…”

“And we fucked up by not being there to help with the burden,” Ryuji declared. “But we’re here now; we know what we did wrong. I told you, your place is right here beside me, and I was a jerk for not remembering that when you needed me.”

“We… We all fucked up,” Makoto said, and half the group turned to stare at her with wide eyes, because they’d never heard her curse like that before. “We all could have done better. But we did the same thing as we did in Doctor Maruki’s reality; we were too focused on ourselves and our own happiness and goals, and we forgot to check in on our friends. Not just you; we hardly checked in on each other, either. It just hit you the hardest.”

Akira reached into the pocket of his coat with his free hand and pulled out a heavy silver key. He weighed it in his palm for a moment before handing it to Sumire. “I...never meant to cause this much trouble.”

“Don’t you dare apologize any more,” Goro said firmly. “None of this is your fault.”

“...right.” Akira smiled tentatively. “Satanael is waiting at the top of the tower. Thank you...for coming to get me.”

All the Thieves crowded in, trying to hug him, and by the time they were finished he had faded away into light, leaving a worn leather glove in his place. Goro picked it up gently, worrying his lip between his teeth, but no one asked. At this point, they understood.

***

Goro wanted to go immediately back to where Joker and the real Akira were waiting, but by the time they found another safe room, he could barely walk. Adrenaline had kept him going, but now that they were safely away from the fight, all the burns he’d been ignoring were beginning to scream for attention.

As the King of Hearts had mentioned, the safe room was the jazz club, and the other Thieves looked around curiously as Goro dropped himself heavily into a chair and took his mask off.

“Senpai, do you want me to heal you?” Sumire asked, hovering at a safe distance, as if Goro was going to burst back into flames.

“...sure.” It was frustrating to have to rely on the others, but he didn’t have any healing magic of his own, and his items were few. And he wasn’t inclined to be completely stubborn anymore. So he let Sumire do what she wanted, unable to deny the relief he felt when the healing magic washed over him.

He only perked up again when someone called his name, but when he looked up, it wasn’t one of the Thieves. It was the manager of the jazz bar, and Goro was acutely aware of the others watching him as the cognitive said cheerfully, “Good to see you! I told your friend I was worried that you hadn’t been here in a while. Glad you’re safe and sound.”

Goro blinked. “...you told him what?”

The cognitive manager smiled. “He came by back in March. So I asked him about you. He’s the only person you ever brought here, and he only came with you, so I figured you were friends.”

“...I’m sorry for not coming back sooner,” Goro murmured, unsure whether he was saying it to the manager or Akira as a whole.

The man nodded. “No problem. Let me know if I can get you or your friends a drink.”

Once he’d walked away, the others converged, and Goro latched onto a detail that stuck out to him. “None of you have ever been here?”

“Nope. I didn’t even know somewhere like this existed in Kichijoji,” Ryuji said. “We all went to play darts a lot, but this is totally different.”

“I didn’t know Akira-kun liked jazz,” Haru hummed. “This place has a very nice atmosphere.”

Morgana jumped onto the table opposite from Goro. “...he mentioned it to me once. I suggested bringing one of the others here one time, and he said no. He said…” Morgana hesitated. “He said that it was somewhere you liked, and he didn’t want to bring someone else there and betray your choice to share it with him.”

Goro stared down at the table. Akira was such a sentimental idiot. But...it made him feel warm, that Akira had considered his feelings, had wanted to keep something for just the two of them. That he’d considered it special enough to bother.

“Hey, Akechi…” Ann began. “You… You love Akira, right? Why _didn’t_ you call him? Text him back? Something? We all thought…”

There wasn’t really a good excuse, was there? But he’d had a justification, however flimsy it was, and while he didn’t owe them an explanation, he was fairly certain that being in their good graces would serve him better after this if he intended to stay with Akira.

“It’s...complicated,” he said, and part of him wished he had a drink. “My whole life has been about...other people. Being how they wanted, regardless of my own wishes. Caretakers, coworkers, the public, Shido… And even Maruki wanted to change me into something else, erase everything that made me my current self.” He didn’t look at the Thieves, not wanting to see the pity that was certainly on their faces. “I needed...time. Space. A chance to be and exist for myself without being beholden to anyone. And I understand now that I was being selfish, that I left him to suffer because I thought a promise was enough. But at the time, all I wanted was to know for sure that I was making all of my choices for me. That I wasn’t coming back out of some sort of obligation.”

To his surprise, none of them said anything at first. He’d assumed they would be clamoring to tell him that it was no excuse to abandon their precious leader like that, hypocritical as it would be. But everyone was quiet, and then Haru sat down across from him and said softly, “I understand. I...know what it’s like to be forced to live your life for other people, rather than yourself. And we are not blameless. Did you find the answer you were looking for?”

Goro swallowed hard. “I did. I had...every intention of returning, to surprise him, and of course I made the decision too late. Everything I do goes wrong in some way.” He laughed mirthlessly.

Futaba tilted her head. “You didn’t know, though. Like...yeah, you should have called him. But you didn’t single-handedly cause this place. And you showed up to help. You were here before us!”

“And I hate to say it,” Ryuji said, “but I don’t think we’d have gotten through this place without you. There was too much we didn’t know. We might have stumbled on some of the answers eventually, but the interrogation? The courtroom? That would’ve been a nightmare.”

“Joker did say we couldn’t brute-force the puzzles,” Futaba sighed.

Goro hadn’t expected Ryuji, of all people, to come to his defense. Or Haru. Or Futaba. What was wrong with all of them? But they also weren’t the type to say something just to make him feel better, so...that was what they really thought. They didn’t blame him for this.

“I...appreciate the sentiment,” he said quietly. “I hope that when all of this is over, we can find time to talk about everything. Even if it’s just for Akira’s sake. But right now, all I want to do is wake him up and make sure he’s all right.”

“Indeed,” Yusuke said. “We have the key to the final area. We need only ascend from here.”

Sumire held up the key with a smile. “Let’s go get Joker and Akira-senpai and finish this!”

“Right.” Goro pushed himself to his feet, fully healed and ready to go.

There was only one thing left to do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you, Jade, for the formatting inspiration. <3


	9. Chapter 9

Most of them had a certain impression of Joker, in comparison to the Akira they interacted with in the real world. Joker was unrestrained, always itching to go, ready for the next battle. He was powerful, merciless, the embodiment of righteous anger.

They expected to find him pacing the attic, filled with nervous energy while he waited. So it was a bit of a surprise to return to the safe room and see him quietly sitting beside Akira, running a gloved hand through his hair.

He looked up at all of them where they were clustered around the stairs, eyes darting from the key in Sumire’s hand to the glove in Goro’s, and a smile crossed his face. “I knew you could do it.”

“It was a near thing for a minute there,” Sumire said. “Goro-senpai almost burnt to a crisp.”

Goro rolled his eyes. “You certainly weren’t wrong about how much anger Akira has been keeping in.” He walked over to hand Joker the glove, then sat down on the edge of the bed. “Is he okay?”

“His sleep has been restless. Probably because you were confronting the most volatile piece.” Joker watched the glove dissolve, then returned his attention to Akira. “I have been trying to soothe him; I didn’t want to risk him waking and making things more difficult for you.”

The other Thieves had scattered around the room, finding places to sit as well. “I didn’t think it was possible for him to wake up while he’s like this,” Makoto said.

“Usually not,” Joker said. “But you’ve brought us back to just the core pieces of his heart. The only thing holding us back now is Satanael’s bindings. I don’t know for sure if we would be able to wake him now, but I would rather not risk it.”

“Understandable,” Yusuke said. “If we can avoid causing him any further mental anguish, that would be for the best.”

Joker smiled at Goro. “Are we prepared to move forward, then?”

Goro offered a tentative smile in return. “What can we expect in the tower that you mentioned?”

“It’s simply a tower. There is nothing there but Satanael,” Joker assured him. “The hard part is finished. You’ve all done so much...and I’m incredibly grateful.”

“Then let’s go get the last piece!” Ann said brightly, and the others chimed in with their agreement.

There was a moment of intense, silent communication between Joker and Goro, and then Goro scooped up Akira, his posture just slightly defensive. Joker conceded with a grin, straightening his coat with a flourish and waving them to follow. “I’ll take you to the tower. It’s not far.”

They had been expecting some sort of fantasy tower, considering the places they’d seen so far. A whimsical prison for the final piece of Akira’s heart. But Joker led them towards the obvious landmark of the Skytree, which, like the temple, had blended into the horizon until attention was called to it. He took them straight inside to the elevator, and all the way to the top. The top floor, though, looked like a perfectly ordinary house, and Morgana yelped.

“This is the second floor of his parents’ house!” he cried. “So this is where it went.”

Sumire looked down at the key she was still carrying. “...which room is senpai’s?”

Joker pointed to a room off to one side, which had a single keyhole beneath a silver knob that matched the key. It was almost clever; the other doors had keyholes as well, but there was nothing else in the hallway to offer any clues to the solution. It was yet another empty area in a city full of empty areas, with no way to solve it unless you already had the key...or you had help. Anyone that Akira didn’t want here would be out of luck.

Sumire looked back at all of them for a moment, then seemed to steel herself and marched forward to unlock the door. It revealed a perfectly ordinary bedroom, but seated on the bed, wrapped in a thick black chain, was a final Akira. This one was dressed like Satanael, right down to the horned, golden mask, and all of them were a bit dumbstruck.

There were even more chains scattered across the floor, and Goro frowned. “Are those… Did we loosen those by gathering the other pieces?”

Satanael looked up, his eyes molten gold behind his mask. “That’s right,” he said, and it was Akira’s voice, but deep, and smooth, and they all stared at him in awe. The demonic-looking Akira hummed. “You've all done very well. I always had faith in you. My rebels. My Thieves.”

“How do we get rid of the last one?” Sumire asked. She walked further into the room, looking the final piece over curiously. She, like Goro, had never seen Satanael. It was so strange to see Akira as some sort of demon lord. “How do we help you?”

“I cannot remove it myself,” Satanael said. “But…”

“But we can!” Ryuji declared. He pushed forward behind Sumire with a raised fist. “We can do this!”

All the Thieves crowded after him, leaving Goro to step back, still cradling Akira. In a burst of pettiness, probably born from the stress of spending his day being forced to confess all sorts of faults and feelings, he acknowledged that this might be the very first puzzle they had managed to solve without his help. And of course, it was the only one where there was nothing to figure out. Joker watched from Goro’s side as all of them grabbed for the chains, which brightened from black to silver under their touch before coming loose so they could pull them away. When Satanael got to his feet, he towered over them all by at least a foot, even Yusuke, and the Thieves parted like the sea to allow him to approach Goro. Goro just looked up at him, resisting the urge to step back. He really didn’t like Akira being taller than him.

Satanael tilted his head, picking up on his slight discomfort. “Lavenza calls you ‘Knight’,” he said conversationally. “Did you know?”

“...yeah,” Goro said quietly. “She called me that after the Palace collapsed.”

“You came all this way to save us. I believe that means you count as my knight, as well.”

There was a hint of fangs in the demon lord’s smile, and Goro huffed. “Stop flirting when you’re like this. Especially in front of all of our stupid friends.”

“...‘our’ friends?”

“Shut up.” Goro frowned up at him. “What do we have left to do? Just tell me.”

Satanael gestured to Akira’s bed. “Do you want to put him down?”

That was...certainly a way to phrase it. What _did_ he want? If he was being given a choice… “Not particularly, no.”

Distantly, he heard Ann cooing in the background, and steadfastly ignored her. Satanael chuckled. “Very well. It makes no difference.”

Joker stepped around, smiling at everyone. “Thank you,” he said, “for coming to save us. Our real self never wanted to believe that we had been abandoned. Thank you for proving him right.” And then, just loudly enough for Goro’s ears alone, “But we’re most glad that you came, _mon cher_.”

Lights began to surround the two of them as they reached out to touch Akira, and as they went translucent, both of them were beaming at Goro and their real self with so much fondness that it was almost overwhelming. Goro looked down at Akira to avoid making eye contact until they were gone. He already seemed better, somehow, even though visually nothing had changed, and Goro carefully adjusted his hold.

“We should go,” he murmured, without looking up. “This place will grow unstable soon. And we’re very high up.”

It took a second, because everyone was still processing what had just happened, but then Makoto said, “He’s right. We need to get back to the elevator before the Palace starts collapsing. We don’t want to be trapped up here.”

***

The Thieves moved with an urgency born of escaping eight collapsing Palaces, fleeing for their lives as things crumbled around them. There was no tremor here, no indication that the world was about to crash down around their ears, and thus, no sprinting madly for the exit. But they still walked with purpose, herding into the waiting elevator and jittering anxiously as it began to descend.

Akira stirred in Goro’s arms, and the tower shuddered, making all of them grab for the walls and each other, but ultimately he just made a sleepy noise and nuzzled further into Goro’s shoulder. The earthquake stopped, and the Thieves watched as Goro kissed his forehead, speaking quietly into his hair. None of them had ever, ever seen Goro Akechi be so gentle to anyone or anything before. It was strange, but at the same time, it didn’t feel like a lie. He seemed barely aware that the rest of them were even there, so it wasn’t as though he was putting on a show for their benefit.

The lesser shadows had vanished while they were in the tower, so their trip back to the entrance was unimpeded, and they returned to the real world without any trouble. At that point, though, they had to confront the question of what to do with Akira.

“We can’t take him home if his parents think he just left for Tokyo without telling them,” Haru said. “Especially since he hasn’t woken up.”

Goro raised an eyebrow. “Is this...even a question? He’s coming back to my room with me, of course.”

“Yeah, but we all wanna be there when he wakes up. Are you good with everyone piling into your room?” Futaba asked. “We came all this way to be here for him, same as you.”

For just a moment, he hesitated, then conceded to the request. “Just don’t cause a scene. The room is not meant for nine people and a cat.”

“Hey, we can be quiet if we need to,” Ryuji said, and Ann grinned, elbowing him lightly.

“No worries, Goro. We’ll behave.”

Thankfully, they didn’t have to go past the front desk to reach Goro’s room, which meant he didn’t need to explain to the innkeeper where he’d found eight people, including one who was carrying a cat and one who was unconscious. It was smaller than Leblanc’s attic, but larger than Akira’s room, and the Thieves found seats where they could. Goro laid Akira gently on the futon, then removed his shoes and gloves before pulling the other boy into his lap. He really hoped none of them asked, because he had no good explanations for why he just wanted to keep holding Akira. Other than simple, ordinary selfishness, because he wanted to be the first thing Akira saw when he woke up.

“We did everything right, didn’t we…?” Morgana asked, curling up beside Goro. “He’s gonna be okay. He has to be.”

“Satanael and Arsène indicated as much,” Goro replied. “We just need to be patient.”

“The people whose hearts we changed spent days recovering before the full effects kicked in,” Yusuke pointed out. “Even if we did not change Akira’s heart, it still had to be strenuous for him to be put back together. It could be hours before he wakes.”

“Good thing we’re here for the long haul,” Futaba declared.

And they were. To Goro’s great amazement, they all stayed, quiet and keeping watch. Ann and Makoto were sent on a run back to the Thieves’ hotel rooms for supplies and snacks, and then they settled in like they were ready to camp out for a week. Yusuke’s sketchbook, phone chargers, Futaba’s laptop, a stack of books… They each found their own ways to pass the time, surreptitiously checking on Akira every few minutes. Goro ended up propped against the wall, bunching up the pillows so he could sit and read with Akira still securely in his lap. And it was...nice. Nice to be surrounded by people who cared. Because they did.

They wouldn’t keep interrupting his reading to make sure he’d gotten his share of the snacks if they didn’t.

Dinnertime came and went, takeout was ordered, an extra futon was found in the closet and unrolled, and while the room still wasn’t meant for nine people, they made do with what they had, trying to make sure everyone was comfortable enough. By the time Goro finally couldn’t make himself stay awake anymore, he was the last thief standing other than Futaba, who was occupying the room’s only chair with her laptop. The others had mostly squeezed themselves onto the other futon, even if their legs were sticking off, and Sumire had ended up curled up beside Goro, one arm keeping Morgana close. Somehow, it worked, and the last coherent thought he had was that there was even still enough space at the end of his futon, if Futaba ever decided to lie down.

***

When Goro woke up again, it was still dark, and Akira was stirring. He made himself stay still, letting Akira take stock of his surroundings, but then Akira shot upright, accidentally bracing his hand on the middle of Goro’s stomach, and Goro coughed.

“Sorry, sor—” Akira began, but then cut himself off. “G-Goro? Wh—”

“Shh, you’ll wake the others,” Goro said quietly, and Akira looked around the dark room with wide eyes.

“I… How did…?” he whispered. “Are you...real?”

Goro reached up and cupped his face, pulling him down far enough to press their lips together. Akira kissed back, then made a muffled noise as Goro pulled away and squished his cheeks, forcing him to look at him. “I am real. And if you ever scare me like that again, I will leave you to the inept care of your stupid friends. Do you understand?”

Akira stared at him, mouth hanging open slightly, and then he started tearing up. He collapsed down onto Goro’s chest, grabbing hold. “You’re so mean. They’re your friends, too,” he said with a quiet, hysterical giggle, squeezing Goro like he was afraid he’d disappear.

“...maybe,” Goro said, and started petting his hair. “I suppose I’ll have to make an attempt now, if I’m going to stay with you.”

“You…” Akira began, but he didn’t seem to know what to say, and Goro hushed him.

“In the morning,” he promised. “You still need to rest. And you know all the others will want to make sure you’re okay. I’ll still be here when you wake up.”

Akira shifted enough to look at him searchingly, grey eyes soft and vulnerable. “...I’m glad you’re here,” he said, so quietly Goro could barely hear him.

Goro took a shaky breath. Not now. Not yet. “I am, too.”

And only after Akira had dozed back off, still clinging tightly, he murmured, “I love you.”

***

Akira woke first the next morning.

At first, he didn’t move. He could feel Goro’s chest rising and falling under his cheek, slow and even with sleep. It seemed impossible, but with light spilling from a gap in the curtains, everything was crisp and sharp and real, without the strange weirdness around the edges that the metaverse often brought. This couldn’t be somewhere in that weird maze anyway, because this was a room he’d never seen before.

When he finally focused on something other than the curtains, the way he was facing meant that the first thing he saw was Sumire, curled up on the other side of the futon with Morgana asleep in the crook of her arm. He must have worried Morgana so badly, disappearing like that. Morgana had clearly figured out how to call the others. But he could barely believe they were all here, and that didn’t explain Goro…

Past Sumire, on the far side of the room, Futaba had nodded off in the room’s single, overly-plush decorative armchair. And on a second futon, the rest of the Thieves had somehow figured out how to fall asleep in a mostly organized heap. Three facing one way, two facing the other, legs hanging off the ends… It was kind of funny seeing them like this. It reminded him of sleepovers in the attic, what felt like a long time ago.

Across from him, Sumire’s eyes fluttered open, and she yawned. Lazily, she ran a hand over Morgana’s back, and then she noticed Akira was watching her and swallowed a yelp. “Sen—!”

Akira reached out with the arm draped over Goro, and she grabbed his hand and squeezed. He wanted to say something, anything, a million words piled so high inside him that he didn’t know where to start. But before he could choose any of them, he was interrupted by his stomach growling, and wilted.

Sumire covered her mouth to muffle a giggle and pointed at a plastic bag on the floor. Akira could just barely make out familiar snack wrappers, and he smiled gratefully. Untangling himself without waking Goro was tricky, but somehow he managed, and as Sumire curled back up, he went to dig out a granola bar.

As he ate, he kept looking around the room, still not sure what he was going to say. If they’d come after him, they’d seen all of it. The terrible state of his heart. The horrible maze, that awful shadow self...and probably worse things that Akira didn’t know about. But they were all still here. His friends...and Goro.

He finished his snack and crawled slowly back into the futon, still trying not to wake anyone just yet. He just wanted to bask in having all of them here, before they started asking questions and worrying. It was warm, curled up against Goro, and he wanted as much as he could have before he was forced to let go again.

“You’re thinking very loudly,” Goro murmured, pulling him closer.

Akira huffed a soft laugh. “Just thinking about how nice this is,” he admitted. “I don’t want to get up again.”

“Not until everyone else gets up and inevitably demands breakfast.” Arms coiled around Akira’s waist, solid and stable, and he could hear the eyeroll when Goro continued, “I’ve unfortunately seen them demolish twice as much breakfast as eight people actually need.”

“Thieving is hungry work,” Akira pointed out. “And it seems like that’s what you are now, so you have to eat more than an apple from now on.”

“I made an effort to start eating better while I was away,” Goro said. “You’ll be pleased to know that I’ve started sleeping more, too.” He paused, then, “I’m sorry, Akira.”

Akira propped himself up on one elbow to look at him. “Sorry? Why?”

Goro scowled. “I should have texted you back. Let you know that I was all right. This is partially my fault. I was so worried about myself…”

“No!” Akira objected. “I should have trusted you to keep your word—”

“I was so caught up in making sure that I wasn’t feeling some sort of obligation—”

“I should have just been patient—”

“So that when I came back to Tokyo and told you that I loved you, I knew for sure it was what I wanted, and I wasn’t just doing it for you—”

“It wasn’t even that long of a—” Akira cut himself off. “...what?”

Goro turned his face away. “Fucking hell…” he muttered. “All of that effort only to ruin it.”

Akira could feel his face turning red. He had basically accepted that even though they had acknowledged their feelings for each other, he was probably never going to hear those words from Goro. And here was Goro, defying all of his expectations by not only saying it, but saying it first. What an asshole.

He reached up to nudge Goro to look at him again. “Hey,” he murmured when they made eye contact. “If you’re sorry for that, I’m sorry for having a meltdown. I love you too.”

Kissing Goro felt like it unspooled the last bit of tension in his frame, letting him finally relax into lips on his and warm hands on his back, keeping him steady. He could have kept going much longer, but they were interrupted by Futaba’s voice, obnoxious and chirping.

“I’d tell you two to get a room, but I guess technically we’re the ones crashing here.”

Both boys looked over to find all the Thieves now awake and staring at them. Goro frowned, but there was a telltale flush on his face to match Akira. He pushed himself to sit up, leaving Akira to sprawl in his lap, and Akira watched with amusement as he tried to sound unaffected. “Yes, technically this is my room. So your commentary is unappreciated.”

“You two are sweet, though,” Haru said, smiling. “The way you act around him when you think no one is watching… None of us could doubt that your feelings are genuine.”

Goro chose to ignore the implication that if they _did_ doubt his feelings, they would take action. Instead, he glanced down at Akira, who was blushing like they’d been caught doing something much more explicit, and chuckled. “Don’t worry. I wouldn’t have gone through all of that if he wasn’t important to me.”

“I’m right here!” Akira whined, making no effort to get up.

“Yeah, you are. Hey, are you okay?” Ryuji called, and the mirth in the room slowly settled as the Thieves waited for his answer.

Akira’s hand found its way into Goro’s, holding on tightly. “Better than I was,” he said, but even he could tell that he sounded forced, trying to be light when the situation was still so rough. Goro laid his free hand over his heart, and he forced himself to take a deep breath. “Things were...bad. I didn’t even realize how bad, until… Until it was too late, really. I was just trying to endure it, because that’s...all I really knew how to do. I didn’t want to worry anyone.”

“You shouldn’t have to endure things like that alone,” Yusuke said firmly. “We should have responded to your messages and made more of an effort to check on you. I am ashamed that I spent so much time absorbed in my work and neglected my friends.”

“Yusuke…” Akira murmured.

Makoto slammed her fist into the floor, making most of them jump. “I’m sorry, Akira!”

Every time someone apologized, he looked more shocked. “Wh… For what?”

“Everything,” Makoto said, her voice rough. “You’re our leader. You’re our friend. You helped all of us, and we… I took that for granted. I was so proud of the plan, but I didn’t… I didn’t realize that you didn't think you could say no. I’m sorry.”

“Me too!” Futaba blurted. “I just kept going on about how smart we were; I didn’t pay attention to how badly you were hurt…”

Akira stared at them, his mouth hanging open, and then said incredulously, “W-What happened after I fell into the maze?”

They all tried to explain at once, stumbling over each other as they tried to describe everything they’d seen and learned. Akira listened with wide eyes, looking more and more astonished as they explained the interrogation, the courtroom, the fight against the Godslayer… He twisted to look up at Goro, asking anxiously, “That asshole shadow forced you to tell everyone…? I’m—”

“If you tell me you’re sorry, I’m going to gag you,” Goro said, perfectly pleasant. “It was going to come out eventually. I think they would have noticed me reappearing and showing you affection.”

Akira frowned. “But… Having to admit it like that…”

“Preferable to being accused of perjury and watching the smug asshole with no self-esteem rip your heart out. Or whatever he was planning on doing.” 

“Don’t listen to him,” Ryuji said, grinning. “He sounds all confident now, but at the time he was freaking out, worried you were gonna be hurt."

"He was worried the whole time," Morgana chimed in. "And he figured out most of the puzzles. We couldn't have done it without him."

"...I...I don't care how many puzzles anyone solved. Or who helped the most," Akira said. He pushed himself upright, one of Goro’s arms still loosely around his middle, and continued, “That’s not important. You… You all came, even when part of me didn’t think you would. _That’s_ the important part!”

“Of course we came!” Sumire cried. “It doesn’t matter how far away we are; we’ll always find a way to come and help you.”

Goro found himself trapped between the wall, Akira, and a pile of the Thieves as they all clambered across the room to hug him in the wake of Sumire’s declaration. But it was worth near-suffocation to see Akira smiling, trying to hug all of them back at once.

Yusuke was the first to pull away with the suggestion of getting breakfast. Goro was the one to point out that if they all went out, someone would notice Akira, and in such a small town, word would get back to his parents that he wasn’t in Tokyo. So eventually, Haru, Morgana, and Makoto were sent to retrieve enough pastries to feed everyone, and the others answered Akira’s remaining questions about the Maze.

“At least there was one nice thing,” he said wryly. “The garden sounds like it was beautiful.”

“The safe rooms were nice!” Ann said. “None of us knew you liked jazz, except Goro-kun. It was interesting to learn new things about you.”

Akira sighed. “Things I probably should have told you.”

Morgana padded over to headbutt his knee. “Hey,” he scolded. “Don’t say that. I told them why you never mentioned jazz. You don’t _have_ to tell us things, but you can if you want.”

“I know.” Akira picked him up, bumping their foreheads together, and Morgana purred.

After the others returned and everyone had eaten their fill of doughnuts from the pastry shop, Makoto settled facing Goro and Akira and asked, “What are we going to do about his parents?”

Goro frowned. “They already think he’s in Tokyo. I see no reason why one of us can’t break in, collect enough of his things, and then go to Tokyo anyway. If that’s what Akira wants.”

“...yeah.” Akira nodded. “I really did want to spend summer vacation with all of you, I just…” His expression twisted. Now that he knew there were people who _did_ want him around, the idea of having to spend any more time in this empty house with his distant parents was agonizing. But there was one thing he wanted even more than just Tokyo, and he didn’t know how to ask for it. “I don’t want to stay here. I want to stay in Tokyo, with Yusuke and Futaba, and go back to Shujin, and…”

He looked plaintively at Goro, hoping he understood, and Goro smiled crookedly. “I was planning to start looking for apartments in the city, but it would be...helpful if I had somewhere to stay until I find something.”

“I don’t think Sojiro will get mad if you both stay in the attic,” Futaba chirped. “Especially if it’s just while you’re looking for your own place. You just gotta be willing to put up with the attic.”

Goro’s expression went soft. He didn’t even seem to realize how fondly he was watching Akira. “I think I can put up with the disgusting attic. There are some good qualities to it...like the person who lives there.”

“Dude, I didn’t think you were capable of being that sappy,” Ryuji scoffed, and as Goro turned to inevitably give him a piece of his mind, Akira found that he couldn’t stop grinning. This was what he’d wanted all along. His friends, the boy he loved… 

Why had he ever left?


	10. Epilogue

The bells over Leblanc’s door chimed as it opened to allow three teenagers, two rolling suitcases, and a cat into the small cafe just before it closed for the night. As soon as they were inside, the familiar scents of coffee and spices surrounded them, and Akira felt like a weight was lifted off of his shoulders. The Thieves had explained about the safe rooms in the Maze, and Leblanc being one of them made perfect sense to him.

“Sojiro, we’re home!” Futaba chimed, carrying Morgana over and setting him on the counter in flagrant defiance of the cafe still being open. There weren’t any customers, anyway. It was fine.

Sojiro smiled, drying his hands and rounding the counter to face the two boys still standing near the door. “Futaba called,” he said calmly. “She gave me the… ‘recap episode’ version.”

“That sounds like Futaba,” Morgana said dryly.

Akira laughed despite himself. Ducking his head, he began, “Thanks for letting me come back. I…”

“Oh, be quiet, you idiot.” Sojiro stepped forward to hug him, and he let go of his suitcase and hugged back tightly. “I told you, you’re family. You’re always welcome here. You stay here as long as you need; it’s no trouble at all.”

Akira’s thanks was muffled against Sojiro’s shoulder, and he clung for a minute before letting go so that Sojiro could turn his attention to Goro. “Glad to see that you’re all right, kid.”

Goro’s mouth opened and closed a few times, like he wasn’t sure what to say, and then he managed, “Thank you. I’m doing...much better than I was.”

“Well, you’re welcome here, too. Stay as long as you need.” Sojiro leaned a hand on his hip. “Just make sure you two keep it down while the cafe is open. I do run a business here.”

“Er… How much did Futaba-chan tell you?” Goro asked, and Akira hid a smile as he noticed the hint of a flush on his cheeks.

Futaba giggled from the counter, and even Morgana looked a bit smug about the whole thing. “I told him about you carrying him to safety like a princess, of course,” she said brightly.

Sojiro rolled his eyes. “I can draw my own conclusions. It’s not like you two were subtle before all of this. I might not be a detective, but I can put together evidence when it's just tossed in front of me.”

Goro and Akira stared at Sojiro, then each other, with wide eyes. Had they been that obvious? Akira didn’t know what to do with the notion that Sojiro had figured out his crush on Goro before the brilliant detective prince himself had. That was embarrassing. Whether it was more embarrassing for him or Goro, though, he wasn’t sure.

“I’ll let you two get settled in. It’s closing time anyway.” Sojiro vanished into the back room for a minute and returned with his hat and jacket. “Tomorrow, I want to take you three to dinner.”

“HEY!” Morgana yelled, and Sojiro sighed.

“I guess the cat wants to come too? Four, then. We can probably find a restaurant that allows him.” He waved to them. “Come on, Futaba, let’s head home.”

“Roger!” She nudged Morgana. “Are you coming with me?”

“Yep. These two probably need time to themselves,” Morgana replied. He’d refused to leave Akira’s side for the extra day they’d been in Akira’s hometown, and no one could really blame him. He blamed himself enough for not being there when Akira fell into the Maze.

Futaba scooped him up, and as she passed Akira, he reached out and ruffled Morgana’s ears. “Thanks, Mona. We’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Make sure you get enough sleep,” Morgana said, but he leaned into Akira’s hand. “We’re going to be busy.”

“Yes, mom~”

***

Safely upstairs, Akira and Goro unpacked just enough to find their pajamas and the things they needed for nighttime routines, and then left the rest to sort out later. They’d been on the train with the rest of the Thieves all day; it was too tempting to just fall into bed and worry about the rest of it after a good night’s rest.

“The others will be in town until the second week of August,” Akira said sleepily, “so we’ll have time to do a bunch of stuff. Ann said something about going to Destinyland next weekend.”

Curled around him, chest pressed to his back, Goro hummed. “I’ve never been. It seems a bit... juvenile.”

“From the outside, yeah, but it’s fun. You wear the silly ears and you go on rides and you watch fireworks, and it’s great.” Akira pulled Goro’s arm more snugly around his middle.

“I suppose I did promise you vapid, normal things. That includes stupid outings as a couple.” Goro kissed the back of his neck. “I’ll start looking into apartments in a few days, after things calm down. Once I’ve found some suitable ones, we can go see them together.”

Akira was quiet. Just when Goro was wondering if he’d dozed off, he murmured quietly, “You really are going to stay.”

“Yes.” Goro squeezed him tighter. “I’m back, and I’m not going anywhere. We’re in this together, for as long as you want me.”

Akira rolled over, nuzzling into Goro, and for the first time in months, he felt happy thinking about the future. Things were getting better. His friends were here, he was back where he belonged, and he had Goro. “I’m going to call Kawakami and get her help transferring my transcripts from the first half of the year back to Shujin. I just…won’t tell my parents until everything is set. They can’t really complain if my schooling is straight and I have somewhere to live. They won’t have to… deal with me anymore.”

“If they object, I’m quite sure Sakura-san will defend you. As will I,” Goro said. “So you needn’t worry. You spent a year taking care of everyone else. Let us take care of you for once.”

It was so easy to let Goro pull him up into a kiss, to let himself believe that maybe he didn’t have to be the strong one all the time. And when he woke up the next morning, the memory of kisses and caresses still on his skin, and Goro was still there with no horrible deadline hanging over them…

He could believe they were going to be okay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was a lot of fun, and I really liked writing it. Pondering all the different variations of shadows and how they worked in a Dungeon/Palace/Den/Stronghold framework was interesting. Thanks for all the comments and kudos, and thanks to the people that let me yell at them about puzzle concepts. You know who you are. ;)
> 
> My artist is running a little behind, so no art yet. There might be one more update to this; I haven't decided if I want to give the art its own chapter or just add it in on the chapter its relevant to. I can't wait to see what he does, though. <3


	11. ART

So I'm giving the art its own chapter because it deserves it.

I got extremely lucky to be able to work with Soy, who absolutely obliterated me with the King of Hearts' section of the mural. Please go shower him with love [here](https://twitter.com/emostunttwink/status/1298513792326918145?s=21).


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